A tragic home fire started by an artificial Christmas tree claimed the life of a woman in California early on Christmas morning.
Around 2 a.m. on Sunday, an electrical short from the tree caused a raging fire in the North Highlands home where Destiny Abdrazack, 22, was spending Christmas Eve with her fiancé’s family.
According to her fiancé’s father, Ernest Isom, Abdrazack shouted that there were flames, waking up the five other occupants of the home, which lacked functional smoke detectors.
“She was the one who yelled fire, and that’s the sad part,” Isom told KCRA3 of the woman who was to be his future daughter-in-law. “She saved our lives.”
Firefighters managed to rescue Abdrazack from the burning structure, but he later passed away at a local hospital.
Isom, his wife, son, and two other adults were the only survivors out of the five people in the house.
Isom claimed 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,” he told the station. “It was fast, and that’s how quick it went. I’m talking minutes.”
The house was destroyed, and two family dogs also perished in the fire.
The local news station was informed by neighbours that they woke up to a loud noise and peered out the window to see flames coming from the house.
Richard Byers remarked, “You could see the flickering light on the tree and that’s kind of like the telltale sign of a fire.”
He quickly exited his home and grabbed a fire extinguisher while another neighbour futilely attempted to put out the blaze with a garden shed.
“The fire just came right back,” Byers said. “It was too intense, moving too fast.”
When they left their house three doors down, according to his wife Brandy Byers, they spotted Isom’s family outside, yelling for assistance.
“They cried out, Destiny! Someone is in there! There is a person inside! According to Brandy Byers, KCRA3 “None of us could do anything,”
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.
