Funviralpark A California woman died in a tragic fire early Christmas morning when her house caught fire due to an artificial Christmas tree.
Destiny Abdrazak, 22, was celebrating Christmas Eve at her home in the North Highlands with her fiancée’s family when an electrical short from a tree caused a roaring fire around 2 a.m. Sunday. , reported local NBC affiliate KCRA3.
According to her fiancée’s father, Ernest Isom, Abdrazak screamed that there was a flame, awakening the other five people in the house whose smoke detectors weren’t working.
“She was the one who screamed fire. That’s sad,” Isom told KCRA3 of the woman who would become his future daughter-in-law. ”
Abdrazak was pulled out of the burning building by firefighters, but later died in a local hospital.
Five other people in the house — Isom, his wife, son, and two other adults — survived.
Isom said the family went to bed without turning off the Christmas tree lights.
“Unfortunately they wanted to keep the lights on at the last minute so we happened to fall asleep and were out in the blink of an eye,” he told the station. rice field. “It was fast, that’s how fast it was. I’m talking minutes.
The fire also killed two of his dogs and destroyed the house.
Neighbors told a local news station that they were awakened by loud noises and looked out the window to see flames shooting out of their homes.
“You see flickering lights in the trees,” Richard Byers said.
He ran out of the house and grabbed a fire extinguisher, but another neighbor tried to use the garden house to extinguish the hell out, but to no avail.
“The fire came back quickly,” Byers said. “It was too intense, it moved too fast.”
His wife, Brandi Byers, said she saw Isom’s family standing outside begging for help as they left the house three doors down.
“They were like, ‘Destiny! There’s someone inside! There’s someone inside!'” Brandy Byers told KCRA3. “There [was] we couldn’t do anything. ”
Firefighters rescued Abdulazak from the living room of the house and she was taken to a local hospital in critical condition.
Her family confirmed her death the next day and launched a GoFundMe to raise money to cover her hospital and funeral costs.
