Newburgh woman dies in 1 of 5 fires in region
A Newburgh woman died Friday in a fire that destroyed her home on Oak Street, police said Saturday.
A town woman died Friday afternoon in a fire that destroyed her home on Oak Street in the Middle Hope Fire District, police said Saturday.
The fire was the fifth reported in the region since Wednesday and the only one involving a casualty.
The name and age of the woman who died at 133 Oak St. were not provided pending an autopsy Monday. She was found on the second level of a two-story residence, town police Lt. James Nenni said. The fire was reported at about 3 p.m. Friday.
Nenni said the Oak Street fire is not considered suspicious and investigators believe it started in an attached garage.
The blaze remains under investigation by town of Newburgh fire investigators, according to police detectives and the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The house was “pretty much destroyed,” Nenni said.
He said five fire departments joined in the firefighting effort.
Since Wednesday, residential fires have been reported by fire officials and the Mid-Hudson Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross Thursday on Ohayo Mountain Road in Woodstock, Friday morning on Lookout Farm Road in Napanoch, and on Wednesday and Thursday at a mobile home on Maddox Road in Wawarsing and C.E. Penny Drive in Wallkill.
According to the Red Cross and Assistant Chief Rich Thorpe of the Napanoch Fire Department, financial assistance for shelter, food and clothing was provided to two adults and four children, ages 3, 4, 7 and 13 at 34 Lookout Farm Road in Napanoch.
Thorpe said the fire was reported at 8 p.m. Wednesday and the Lookout Farm Road residence and a vehicle parked in an adjacent driveway were fully aflame when firefighters arrived.
Thorpe said everybody was out of the house when firefighters arrived, but “there was absolutely nothing left.”
Thorpe thanked firefighters from Ellenville, Kerhonkson, Cragsmoor, Accord, Walker Valley and Greenville for their assistance, along with Ellenville Rescue.
On Maddox Road in the Ellenville Fire District, Thorpe said Napanoch firefighters assisted at a residential fire that was caused by a generator being run in an attached garage.
He said the generator was being used because of a local power outage.
Thorpe called the firefighting effort “a good stop.”
He said the fire extended into the house but was quickly controlled.
Thorpe said there may have been two adults and two children living in the house, but no one was injured.
Fire officials in the town of Newburgh, Woodstock, and Wallkill did not respond to requests for additional information.
All Red Cross assistance is provided free of charge and is made possible by donations.
To donate to Red Cross Disaster Relief, visit www. redcross.org or call (800) RED-CROSS.