Elderly woman hospitalized after escaping Bonney Lake house fire

BONNEY LAKE, Wash. – A woman in her 70s survived a massive fire that gutted her Bonney Lake home on 218th Avenue Court East.

Firefighters found the woman on her back porch with serious burns to her face and head.

Neighbors watched the home burn, worried that she didn’t survive.

“I was laying in bed and I heard explosions,” neighbor Shanna Johnson said.

“I looked down the street and I saw the flames,” said neighbor Audrey Young. “It was fully engulfed when I first saw it."

While firefighters rushed toward the flames, Johnson ran to check the backyard.

“I hopped the fence,” she said. “I saw her laying in the back yard, and everyone’s screaming, ‘She’s in the backyard!'”

Firefighters said the homeowner escaped the flames and made it to the edge of the back porch, where medics immediately rushed to help.

“One of the firefighters laying on the ground next to her, shielding her form the heat and the firefighter medic started IVs to start treatment here in the back yard,” said East Pierce Fire & Rescue Chief Bud Backer.

An ambulance rushed the elderly homeowner to Harborview Medical Center with burn injuries to her face and head.

Neighbors were relieved to see that she survived.

“I was glad that when they took her out to the ambulance that she waved at me so she was alert enough,” said Young.

The fire gutted the small home, leaving a charred mess. Family members salvaged what they could.

Firefighters were grateful the elderly woman’s injuries weren’t more serious.

“She was very lucky to get out on her own,” Backer said. “She had just got up and was wearing her nightgown.”

The homeowner is listed in satisfactory condition at Harborview.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.