Qulin woman dies in house fire

QULIN — Foul play is not suspected in the death of a Qulin woman whose body was found early Wednesday morning inside her burned home.

“The (Butler County) Coroner’s Office was dispatched at about 4:30 this morning to a residence south of Qulin on 53 Highway,” explained Coroner Andy Moore. “Inside, there was a deceased individual.

“She was identified as Tammie Boswell, 51.”

An autopsy, Moore said, will be performed Wednesday afternoon by Dr. Russell Deidiker at Farmington.

“At this time, there is no suspicion of foul play,” said Moore. “(Boswell) died as the result of injuries sustained in the fire.”

Moore said Boswell was found in the living room of her home.

Boswell’s location, he said, was determined after “family got there and explained the layout of the house.”

The Qulin Fire Department was paged out at about 12:25 a.m., according to Chief Lee Welty. The home reportedly is located at 18178 Highway 53.

“From what I understand, it was called in by someone on the highway,” Welty said.

When firefighters arrived, the single-story wood frame home was fully involved, Welty said. “It was really far along.

“There is no telling how long it was on fire before someone called it in.”

Efforts, Welty said, were made to suppress and extinguish the fire.

“We put a lot of water on it; I mean a lot of water,” Welty said.

The department, Welty said, has its own tanker.

“We were shuttling water and just got behind,” Welty said. “We called (Butler County Fire) for mutual aid just because our tanker got behind, and we were using more water.”

Butler County firefighters reportedly responded with a tanker at 2:25 a.m.

Since the house was fully involved when firefighters arrived, an interior search was not possible, said Chris Wright, Qulin assistant chief.

The floors were falling into the basement in a lot of places, Wright said.

“Basically we just searched from (outside the) exterior walls in,” Wright said. “We did go down in the basement a little bit (to) the spots we could without hurting ourselves.”

Wright said it was during one of those exterior searches that firefighters found the victim.

Firefighters were assisted in their search by Butler County deputies, according to Chief Deputy Wes Popp.

As firefighters were putting out hot spots, “we were moving things” toward the end when Boswell was found, said Popp, who indicated only a couple four-foot sections of walls still were standing.

Firefighters, according to Welty, remained on the scene until 6:30 a.m.

An investigator with the State Fire Marshal’s Office responded to the scene. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.