Careless smoking may have caused fatal Lee County fire

Sept. 30--LEESBURG -- The cause of a Sept. 22 Lee County house fire that resulted in the deaths of a 71-year-old woman and her 91-year-old mother has been reclassified as "undetermined." The fire is still being ruled accidental.

Investigators now say the fire may have started from careless smoking rather than from an electrical problem that officials originally believed was the source of the blaze, an official with Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Ralph Hudgens' Office said Friday.

"As of now, it (the cause) is undetermined," Glenn Allen, a spokesman for the commissioner's office, said. "It's still nothing suspicious.

"The investigator found another possible place of origin. There were smoking materials in that area."

According to officials, Sarah Jenkins, 71, died when she went back into the house at 378 Creekside Drive in Lee County in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue her mother, Louvineia Stewart, 91. Jenkins and her husband, William Jenkins, 73, had escaped from the structure fire that the Fire Commissioner's Office said started around 9:30 a.m.

Allen said William Jenkins had been taken to the hospital for treatment when the state office's fire marshal originally investigated the blaze, which had been attributed to an electrical socket in the family room of the residence.

After investigators were able to interview the husband, they determined that was not the origin of the fire.

"Electrical was not the cause," Allen said.

When Jenkins and investigator were able to speak at the home, Jenkins directed investigators to another possible origin spot, Allen said.

"There were smoking materials that they found in that area," he said. "It may have been caused by careless smoking."

A fire shortly before 3 a.m. Sept. 24 in Douglas County claimed two more lives: Boyd Weese, 80, and his wife, Evelyn Weese, 79. That fire, which has been determined by the Fire Commissioner's Office to have started from an electrical malfunction in the house's attic, brought to 77 the number of people in Georgia who have died in fires this year.

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