Cumming House Fire Sends One to Hospital

A Cumming woman is recovering at Grady Memorial Hospital after a fire swept through her home on Saturday morning, Forsyth County fire officials said Monday.

Division Chief Jason Shivers with the Forsyth County Fire Department tells Patch that fire companies were dispatched to a home in the 2700 block of Highland Ridge Court just after midnight Saturday after a woman inside the home called 911 and reported the home was on fire and said she and another woman were trapped in their bedrooms. Shivers added that the home’s smoke detectors were working properly and were sounding at the time of the fire.

Companies en route to the scene suspected that the fire had been caused by a lightning strike, as other companies were battling an attic fire caused by lightning in south Forsyth at the time, Shivers said.

The first crews on the scene confirmed an active fire in the kitchen of the home; Shivers said that the engine crew began to tackle the fire while the ladder crew used infrared imaging equipment to locate one of the women, who was unconscious on her bedroom floor.

After the unconscious woman was removed from the home, the ladder crew went back inside to retrieve the caller, who could not be extricated through her bedroom window because of a securely-installed air conditioning unit, Shivers said. Instead, the ladder crew took the woman out of the house through the front door after the engine crew extinguished the fire.

The unconscious woman was rushed to Grady and is currently in serious but stable condition recovering from smoke inhalation injuries and is expected to survive, Shivers said. The caller was taken to a nearby hospital for observation but was released shortly after.

Investigators say the fire was accidental but have not yet determined the exact cause, Shivers said.