Qulin woman dies from fire injuries

QULIN — An autopsy Wednesday afternoon confirmed a Qulin woman died of the injuries she suffered when her home caught fire.

“The autopsy confirmed our initial finding that there was no foul play” in the death of Tammie Boswell, 51, said Butler County Coroner Andy Moore.

Dr. Russell Deidiker found Boswell’s death was “consistent with injuries sustained in a fire,” according to Moore,

Moore said he was called to Boswell’s home on Highway 53, south of Qulin, at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Moore said Boswell was found in the living room of her home. The home reportedly is located at 18178 Highway 53.

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.

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

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

The department has its own tanker, Welty said.

“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.