A 61-year-old Cobb County grandmother died Tuesday in a predawn fire at her Kennesaw home.
The blaze broke out around 4:30 a.m. in the brick, ranch-style house on Ben King Road, according to Cobb fire spokeswoman Denell Boyd.
Four of the woman’s family members, and a woman renting an apartment in the basement of the home, were able to escape without injury.
Boyd said it took fire crews about an hour to knock down the flames, and crews were still on the scene dousing hot spots at 8:30.
Karen Barnes, who was renting the basement apartment, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she “kept smelling something like plastic burning throughout the night.
“Then, about 4:30, I heard a rumbling upstairs, like, ‘Get up! The house is on fire!’ When I got outside, I saw flames go through the living room and the house.”
Boyd said the woman who died was in a back bedroom. She said there was “heavy fire” in the bedroom and the flames burned through the roof in that part of the house.
While the cause of the fire has not been determined, “at this point, it looks like the fire did start in her bedroom,” Boyd said.
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