The neighbour of a woman who died in a house fire in Ramsey has told how he smashed a window as he fought desperately to reach her.
Mark Norman, of Star Lane, Ramsey tried in vain to enter his neighbour’s house, using a brick to smash a downstairs window, but was overwhelmed by smoke and forced back.
He told the Hunts Post: “It was somewhere around 6.25am when my sister told me about the fire,” said Mr Norman. “Fire was coming from the down stairs and the flames were strong.
“I tried to get through the back but couldn’t manage to. I came round the front and threw a brick through the window to get into the house but the heat and the flames were too much.”
Mr Norman added: “The fire service were then here within minutes and were brilliant. It is really sad news as the woman and her husband were really good people.”
Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service and Cambridgeshire police were called to the incident by Mr Norman’s sister, Sarah, who heard the fire alarm coming from the house and saw smoke coming from the downstairs.
“I knew the lady and her husband as they had lived in the house for a while. It is just very sad,” said Miss Norman.
According to neighbours the victim and her husband had lived in the house for 45 years but it is understood that the victim’s husband was in hospital at the time of the incident.
Cambridgeshire police said that the death was not being treated as suspicious and the matter had been passed to the coroner.
Fire crews from Ramsey, Huntingdon, Stanground and Whittlesey were called to the incident, along with a support unit.
A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue said: “The ground floor of a two-storey semi-detached house was well alight when crews arrived.
“The fire had spread to both floors of the house. Firefighters found the body of an elderly woman in a downstairs room.”
The spokesman added that investigators had determined that the cause of the fire was accidental.
The spokesman said that material from an open fire had set light to clothing, or another textile material, which had then spread to the rest of the house
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