North Bay Apartment Fire Injures 3

SANTA ROSA - Three people were injured in an apartment fire in a 14-story building in Santa Rosa Thursday afternoon, including a 74 year-year-old woman who suffered severe burns to 35 percent of her body.

Firefighters were dispatched to the 801 Tupper St. at 3:58 p.m. on report of a fire on the sixth floor of Bethlehem Towers.

They got to the sixth floor using the stairwell and located a woman with severe burn injuries and difficulty breathing. She was removed from the building, as were two other people, and transported to a hospital with second and third degree burns.

A neighbor told firefighters that he'd found the victim in her apartment with her clothes on fire, then moved her to the shower to put the fire out.

He suffered minor burns to his hands and was evaluated by paramedics, but refused transport to a hospital.

Another woman was transported to a hospital in stable condition with difficulty breathing.

Firefighters said the blaze was contained to the apartment of origin.

Neighboring apartments were evacuated to other floors, but none of the people evacuated were injured.

The official cause of the fire remains under investigation, but investigators said the victim's clothing may have caught fire after coming into contact with the stove while she was cooking.

-Bay City News/Photos courtesy of City of Santa Rosa Fire Department on Facebook