Utah grandmother dies in house fire
(KUTV) — 61-year-old Shelly O'Meara of Draper died early Tuesday morning when her family's house went up in flames.
The house, at 498 East 13800 South, caught fire just before 1 a.m., said Draper City Fire Chief Clint Smith.
O'Meara's son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren made it out of the house. One of the children, age 6, sustained second-degree burns but was in stable condition at the hospital.
Smith said the log house burned quickly. The fire started on the exterior of the house, on a porch. At the time of this post, Smith said the exact cause of the fire was still under investigation.
Because the house sits on a private lane, with no fire hydrants, firefighters had to break through a vinyl fence and run a hose through a neighbor's backyard, to the hydrant one street over.
Rob Fabry, a long-time neighbor, said he was awakened by two loud booms.
When he looked over his back fence, he saw his neighbor with his wife and kids.
The man was desperately looking for his mother, who was in the burning house.
"He was yelling for his mom over and over," he said.
Smith said people who live on private lanes are responsible for their own fire hydrants, but nothing in the law requires them to install one.
He said his crews did not have trouble finding the closest hydrants.
"It did not affect our response time," he said.
Smith said his first crew arrived at the fire seven minutes after the 911 call.
Neighbors were concerned that detours and construction on 13800 South kept fire crews from getting there faster because the street is a mess.
At the same time, neighbors like Jenny Orgill and Fabry don't think a swifter response would have saved Shelly's life.
"I don't know that the outcome would have been any different," said Orgill noting that the log house burned very fast.
Smith said the fire department is well aware of those detours and took an alternate route straight to the scene.
