Community College Instructor Dies in Newton Fire

A Bunker Hill Community College associate professor died Monday morning in a fire in Newton.

According to Captain Mark Heitman, Beth Deare died during a fire at 56 Waverley Ave., Newton. She was the lone fatality in the blaze, which tore through the second story of a 140-year-old home.

According to Deare's LinkedIn page, she was an associate professor at Bunker Hill Community College. She taught communication studies and special interest communications out of the Charlestown campus, according to BHCC's website.

Deare was a member of the Board of Directors for No Limits Media and, according to the biography on the No Limits website, Deare was a cancer survivor as well as a video producer entrepreneur, a career that started after she founded the Caribbean Center for Understanding Media.

The biography also notes Deare's work as a producer on PBS' "Say Brother" as well as her work producing other television projects for PBS that have aired across the country. 

A Beth Deare is listed on the Internet Movie Database as a producer and script supervisor for "The American Experience."

Stephen Walsh contributed to this report.