Darlene Alston, 71, was pronounced dead Sunday evening after firefighters removed her from a house fire. Johnson said Monday would have been his grandmother’s 72nd birthday.
Dayton Fire Department crews responded to a house in the 300 block of Ashwood Avenue around 8:32 p.m. Firefighters immediately entered the home to search for occupants and control the fire, according to a press release.
An adult victim, later identified as Alston, was found inside and removed from the house within around two minutes, according to the fire department. Her injuries were not survivable.
The Montgomery County Coroner’s Office and fire department are investigating Alston’s cause of death.
It was the first fire fatality in Dayton for 2023. In the past three years there have been six fatalities, with three recorded in 2022, according to Dayton Fire Department statistics.
There was one deadly fire in 2021 and two in 2020.
Half of the fatal fires reported in the previous three years took place in January. In a house fire reported on Jan. 6, 2022, on Broadmoor Drive a 74-year-old woman died and her son suffered serious injuries rescuing his daughter.
The remaining fire fatalities took place in May, August and September.
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