PORT TOWNSEND — An 83-year-old woman who “smelled something really bad” rose from bed just before midnight Sunday and escaped her burning house on Taylor Street.
Margaret Bimel said she was lying in bed in her house at 921 Taylor St., smelled the foul odor and got up to investigate, she said Monday.
She turned on the flashlight she keeps next to her bed but “could not see anything because of all the smoke.
Unable to reach her phone, she ran outside, where she asked her neighbor, Sven Trautmann, to call 9-1-1.
By that time, several other neighbors had seen the flames and came outside.
Trautmann said he started to battle the fire with a garden hose but stopped when East Jefferson Fire-Rescue units arrived a few minutes later.
The fire started when several papers had fallen behind a desk in the living room and came in contact with a baseboard heater and ignited, fire investigator Kurt Steinbach said Monday.
Bimel said a plastic piggy bank also had fallen behind the desk, and it was the source of the horrible smell.
Paramedics from East Jefferson Fire-Rescue treated Bimel for first-degree burns to the arms and back before transporting her to Jefferson Healthcare hospital in Port Townsend.
She was released in the early morning hours and is now staying with neighbors.
The two-bedroom, 836-square-foot house was built in 1960 and has an assessed value of $160,425.
Steinbach said the house did not suffer much structural damage and could be rebuilt.
Bimel is retired and worked as a cleaning woman.
“I have no idea what I am going to do now,” she said.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsula dailynews.com.