Atlanta, Georgia: Elderly Woman Found Dead After Collier Heights House Fire

Atlanta fire officials said an elderly woman who used a wheelchair was found dead after a house fire early Tuesday in the Collier Heights neighborhood of northwest Atlanta, according to Atlanta News First. The fire broke out at a home on Larchmont Court, off Collier Drive.

Crews searched the home at first light

FOX 5 Atlanta reported that firefighters were searching the home for a woman who may use a wheelchair after the large fire broke out. Crews were still working at the scene and searching inside the home at 6:30 a.m., and firefighters were putting out hotspots in the house. Atlanta News First reported that the second floor of the home collapsed as the fire burned early Tuesday.

Fire officials later said the woman had been found dead inside the home, Atlanta News First reported. Officials have not released her name, and no age was given in the first reports from the scene.

What is not yet known

Neither station reported a cause for the fire, and officials had not said how the fire started by the time the search ended. The first reports did not describe damage to nearby homes, and they did not report any other injuries. FOX 5 Atlanta described its report as a breaking story and said further details were not immediately available.

Collier Heights is a residential neighborhood in northwest Atlanta. Larchmont Court sits off Collier Drive, the street both stations named in their reports from the scene. Neighbors woke to fire crews working on the street through the early morning, with the search for the woman at the center of the response.

The death is the second fatal house fire outcome reported in Atlanta in recent weeks. On October 9, a woman and a boy were found dead after a fire on Waters Road in southwest Atlanta, where fire officials said a man and a boy had stepped outside to get water and could not get back inside. That fire remains part of the city's recent run of deadly home fires, and officials in that case urged residents to call 911 at the first sign of a fire instead of trying to fight it.

For the Collier Heights fire, the next facts will come from Atlanta Fire Rescue: the woman's name once her family is notified, the cause of the fire, and whether anyone else was in the home when it started. This article will be updated in place when officials release those details.