Woman escapes burning home
Rome police arrest another resident on an unrelated charge Tuesday morning after she was allegedly seen leaving the scene of the fire in a Ford F-150.
A woman was able to escape a Tuesday morning house fire without serious injury, but the home at 515 Superba Ave. in North Rome was heavily damaged. Rome police also arrested a female resident on an unrelated charge later in the morning after she was allegedly seen leaving the scene in a Ford F-150.
According to Rome-Floyd Fire Department Battalion Chief Greg Abbott:
The blaze erupted in a carport/shed on the back of the building and quickly spread into the main body of the wood-frame home.
Rome police officer Chris Ridling said when he arrived the carport/shed was fully engulfed in flames.
According to a Rome police report written by Ridling, Tracy Loring Dowdy, 54, was able to get out, but in doing so she got so close to the fire that her hair was slightly singed. Dowdy was not taken to a hospital.
Abbott said there was no power to the house so he called the Rome fire marshal’s office to investigate the cause of the blaze. According to the police report: A relative of Dowdy’s told Ridling the house was intentionally set on fire. The relative told Ridling that her family had received threatening Facebook messages from Stacy Tyrene Davis, 45, who also lived at the home.
According to the relative, Davis left the house and got into a black pickup truck or SUV around the time of the fire. Ridling wrote in the report that he passed a black Ford F-150 with a camper top that had three occupants in it — a red-haired female was in the middle seat, which matched the description the relative gave of Davis — on Superba Avenue while on the way to the fire.
Ridling was told Davis was at 102 Calhoun Ave., and he found she had an active warrant for her arrest on a felony probation violation charge.
Officers were sent to Calhoun Avenue and arrested Davis, who was then taken to the fire scene to be interviewed by detectives before being taken to jail. No arson charge had been filed against Davis as of Tuesday night.
A witness, who lives on Palmore St., told Ridling he answered his door to a red-haired woman telling him to call 911 — he could see the burning home across the street. The witness also said he saw the woman get into a black truck or SUV and leave.
Ridling stated in the report that his dashcam caught his patrol car passing the black F-150 that he had seen the red-haired woman in.
Initially Sgt. Billy Crowe, an investigator in the fire marshal’s office, said he was told the residents were using candles for lighting and he believed one of the candles may have fallen to the floor in a room adjacent to the carport/shed. There was a big couch and bed along with other combustibles in the room.
Crowe said Dowdy told investigators she thought she heard something fall in that area and when she opened the door to that room she saw the flames.
“She actually tried to extinguish it,” he said.