A tragic home fire started by an artificial Christmas tree claimed the life of a woman in California early Christmas morning. The woman has been identified as 22-year-old Destiny Abdrazack, The New York Post reported.
The incident took place at a North Highlands house belonging to her fiancé’s family. She was celebrating Christmas Eve there when an electrical short from the tree sparked a raging fire around 2 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 25, the local media reported.
According to her fiancé's father, Ernest Isom, Abdrazack shouted that there were flames, waking up the five other occupants of the house, which lacked functional smoke detectors.
Firefighters removed Abdrazack from the burning structure but subsequently died at a nearby hospital.
Isom told that the family had gone to bed without turning out the lights on the Christmas tree.
“Unfortunately, they wanted to keep the lights on until the last minute and we all happened to fall asleep and we had an instant, seconds to get out,” Isom told the station.
The family lost everything, including the house and two family dogs. But Isom calls Abdrazack a hero for her quick actions.
The local news station was informed by neighbors that they woke up to a loud noise and looked out the window to see flames coming from the house.
“You could see the flickering light on the tree and that’s kind of like the telltale sign of a fire,” Richard Byers said.
He ran out of his house and grabbed a fire extinguisher to try to put out the inferno to no avail.
“The fire just came right back,” Byers said. “It was too intense, moving too fast.”
His wife, Brandy Byers said when they came out of their home three doors down they saw Isom’s family standing outside shouting for help.
“They were screaming, ‘Destiny! There’s someone inside! There’s someone inside!” Brandy Byers told the media.
Abdrazack was pulled from the house's living room by firefighters, and she was brought to a nearby hospital in critical condition.
The following day, her family announced her passing and created a GoFundMe page to collect funds for her medical bills and funeral costs.
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