A 76-year-old woman died Monday morning after a fire started at a Big Lake home, Alaska State Troopers said.
The Houston Fire Department responded to the South Winterhaven Drive home around 8:50 a.m., troopers wrote in an online statement.
Dena Cooper, 76, had told a relative who lives in a camper on the property that there had been an explosion in the house, troopers wrote. She said she planned to seek shelter at a neighbor’s house, but troopers said she wasn’t found when they searched the neighborhood later.
A bedroom in the back of the house was on fire when crews arrived, troopers said. Firefighters found Cooper inside the home and despite life-saving measures, troopers said she died from injuries.
A fire marshal later determined the fire had started from “resistance heating due to loose connections in an electrical outlet,” troopers wrote.