Woman killed in Lynchburg fire

A Lynchburg woman was found dead in her home on Campbell Avenue after a fire broke out in her living room Monday morning.
The 65-year-old woman’s name is not being released pending notification of family members who lives out of the area, said Capt. Thomas Goode, deputy fire marshal of investigations for the Lynchburg Fire Department. He expects her identity to be released today.
What caused her death and what caused the fire remains unknown, he said. The only cause that has been ruled out is arson.
The fire burned the living room of a house in the 4400 block of Campbell Avenue, just inside the city limits near the Campbell County border.
The fire was contained to the living room where the woman was found and was out by the time that Lynchburg firefighters arrived, Goode said.
“There was minimal fire damage,” Goode said. “It was kept to one room, the living room.”
The woman was a smoker and there were oxygen tanks in the living room, he said, but there are many possible sparks for the blaze and investigators are still ruling out other causes.
No one else was home at the time of the fire, he said.
Someone who witnessed the fire called 911 at 11:06 a.m. Monday, Goode said. Investigators still are trying to get in touch with that caller, who may have clues to help investigators piece together the cause.
“We know someone saw it,” he said. “We are trying to figure out who called it in, where they were when they saw it. That might give us that edge.”
Goode said he will return to the house today to further investigate the blaze.
“There are so many things to look at,” he said. “We have a systematic approach to rule out everything possible.”