WOODSTOCK, Va. (AP) — A Shenandoah County fire official says cigarettes are the likely cause of two fires in the spring, including one that killed a woman.
Fire Marshal David Ferguson tells The Northern Virginia Daily (http://bit.ly/1oJzqoZ ) that evidence shows both fires were ignited by burning cigarettes.
Ferguson says the state medical examiner ruled that 86-year-old Kikuko Dischleit died from fire and smoke inhalation when her house in Toms Brook caught fire in March. Investigators believe her husband was smoking before he had a heart attack and died hours before the fire.
The other fire destroyed the historic Alms House in Mauertown in April.
Ferguson hasn’t ruled out an electrical failure. But he says it appears someone tossed a lighted cigarette from the building’s front porch into a bed of mulch.
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Information from: Northern Virginia Daily.
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