Nearby fire

Yesterday afternoon, a house about a half mile to the east of our house burned spectacularly.  From our house we could hear sirens and explosions and see and smell smoke.  Bits of burnt cardboard landed in our yard and at one point I could see bits of paper tumbling in the sky like confetti.  We had to travel to town not long after this all started and we wound up driving within a half a block of  the house engulfed in flames - never seen a house burning that hard for real before.  Even three hours later the road was still blocked off.  We found out later that a woman died in the fire - an article describing this is posted on the Peoria Journal Star's website: http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150926/NEWS/150929462
I stopped by the house today, not surprisingly, there is not much left. While I was looking, a cousin of the woman who died stopped by and we talked a bit.  The woman who passed away was a widow who had lived much of her life close by to her house,  she had a child and grandchildren, and she loved doing crafts.  It is ironic that the bright red fire hydrant so very close to the house was useless because when the fire department tried to use it, a water main broke.  The news tonight says the woman apparently died of smoke inhalation.