No word yet from fire investigators on what started Friday morning’s blaze that killed an Omaha woman, the city’s first fire fatality in three years.
A couple managed to escape the burning home, but the woman's elderly mother did not make it out.
Firefighters were called to the home at 39th and Hartman at 5:38 a.m. When crews arrived, they learned 77-year-old Kathryn Collins was trapped inside. Despite the efforts from firefighters, they were unable to save her.
Collins lived in the home with her daughter and son-in-law, June and Percy Curtis. Kathryn had moved to the house in the past year.
From upstairs, Percy heard the smoke detector go off and tried to save his mother-in-law. Several family members told Channel 6 News that he went back to her first-floor bedroom twice to save her. The fire was so intense, part of his beard was singed.
J.R. Collins is the oldest of eight boys. "She kept the family together. It's such a tragedy to happen so close to Christmas time."
Collins knew prayers were being sent up to heaven even before he knew about the fire because a co-worker called and alerted him of the situation. That community support will be needed now more than ever.
"We had the food and stuff and were getting ready to have Christmas," said the victim's aunt, Kathryn Elaine. "We don't got no more mother, we don't have no more daddy, but it's gonna be alright."
Collins said his mother loved to dance and won many dance competitions. "My daddy used to always say, go dance with your momma. Go dance with your momma. Ain't nothing wrong with you dancing with your momma. That's how I learned to dance. But I found out in the older years I was getting him off the hook. He just didn't want to dance."
It took firefighters 40 minutes to get the blaze under control. There is no word yet on what may have caused the fire. The home was built in 1919. Family members say it's a total loss.
”We'd always end up congregated around where she would be at." Collins remembers what his mother taught him growing up, that family comes first. "I know how it is when you lose all your possessions and everything, valuables. We going to try to stick around and support them, that's what family is for."
For Rodney Collins, one of 23 grandchildren, that meant always having a place to call home. "There's never rejection or anything like that, they are just always there for you."
"I kept praying and praying and I would come back and look out,” said neighbor Gladys J. Smith. "I really feel for them. My heart goes out to them and they will always be in my prayers."
The last fire fatality in Omaha was on December 9, 2008 when 3-year-old Davious Potter-Tate died.
Fire Claims Woman's Life