Firefighters battling a blaze in a ranch-style home in Fallston yesterday afternoon discovered the severely burned body of a disabled woman seated in a wheelchair in the kitchen, a state fire official said.
The cause of the fire was unknown, but it apparently started in the kitchen, said W. Faron Taylor, a deputy state fire marshal.
The victim, identified as Christina Berg, 56, suffered from multiple sclerosis. Her body was taken to the state medical examiner's office in Baltimore, where an autopsy was to be performed today, authorities said.
Taylor said the woman's husband, William M. Berg Jr., was at work when the fire broke out and arrived shortly after it had been extinguished.
Reported at 4:17 p.m. in the 2100 block of Percheron Court, the two-alarm fire was mostly confined to the kitchen, its ceiling and the attic, while the remainder of the house had severe heat damage, Taylor said.
Damage was estimated at $100,000.
Taylor said the bedroom area of the house had a smoke detector, but it was not in the kitchen.
Fifty volunteer firefighters from Fallston, Long Green, Bel Air, Jarrettsville, Kingsville and Joppa-Magnolia stations manning eight pieces of apparatus brought the blaze under control in less than 20 minutes, said Rich Gardiner, spokesman for the county's volunteer fire stations and emergency medical services.
