Updated: 12:45 April 27 with the victim’s name.
Updated 8 a.m. April 28 with additional fire information.
An elderly woman died during a house fire in Twentynine Palms Friday. According to County Fire Battalion Chief Donnie Viloria, firefighters from Twentynine Palms, Joshua Tree, and the Combat Center were called to the fire in the 74500 block of Baseline Road just after 3 p.m. with a possible resident trapped inside the house. Crews arrived to find heavy smoke and flames billowing from a large window in the front of the house. Viloria said firefighters entered the home and found a woman, identified as Helen Garrett, 67, unconscious and unresponsive, in the living room. Paramedics attempted life-saving measures, but Garrett died at the scene from airway injuries consistent with the high temperatures found inside the structure. Firefighters had the blaze knocked down in 10 minutes. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Viloria added that firefighters were called to yet another suspicious fire in Wonder Valley later that night. About 1:30 a.m., they were called to a fire at an abandoned cabin off of Blower and Pipeline. This is the fourth suspicious fire in Twentynine Palms and Wonder Valley in about two weeks.
Firefighters were called to a 2:30 a.m. motorhome fire in the area of Valle Vista and El Portal Avenue in the Desert Heights area of Twentynine Palms on April 22. And on April 19, firefighters responded to two fires on one at 12:51 a.m. in the area of Valle Vista and Barbara Lane, which burned two motor homes; and then an abandoned single-family home in the 1500 block of Bermuda Avenue at 2:22 a.m. All the fires are suspicious in nature.
