A deliberately set, fast-moving fire is what caused the blast that leveled a South Fulton County home last Saturday, authorities said Friday.
Fulton County Fire and Rescue Deputy Chief Jack Butler confirmed that arson was the cause.
“It was a classic arson,” Butler told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It would appear that there was a lot of accelerant spread around the house. It burned hot and it burned fast.”
The bodies of a man and a woman were found in the explosive fire’s aftermath. Although the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office has yet to be able to identify the man, Butler said the man died of smoke inhalation.
The woman, 34-year-old Beverly Bland, was strangled to death, Fulton County police said.
The fire burned so quickly that it left the wooden frame of the home standing, authorities Emergency dispatchers began getting calls about the fire Saturday afternoon around 1 p.m., after neighbors hears a huge explosion from the house on Garvey Drive, just outside Fairburn.
“Normally, you wouldn’t see a frame left,” Butler said. “The fire burned away everything that wasn’t wood.”
Butler said only one side of the wooden planks on the frame were burned, which is indicative of a fast-burning blaze. Normally, a slow fire burns both sides of the wood, he said.
Both bodies were reportedly found in a bedroom.
Police continue to investigate the motive for the fire, and who started it.
“Obviously, somebody meant to kill her,” Butler said of Bland. “The question is whether this [unidentified man] meant to die in there as well.”
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