Disabled pensioner killed in house fire

A DISABLED woman died last night after fire broke out in her flat.

The 61-year-old, who has not yet been named by police, was found dead by the emergency services in her ground floor flat in Morningside yesterday evening.

She is thought to have suffered from mobility problems and used an electric wheelchair, but police could not confirm if she had become trapped in the flat as a result.

Officers closed off Comiston Gardens to passers-by as firefighters were called to the street just after 7pm. Firefighters used one hose-reel jet and four breathing apparatus to put out the flames.

The fire was extinguished by 8:20pm, but fire crews remained at the scene late into the night, along with police officers and forensic teams, who could be seen in white suits entering and leaving the taped-off building and also taking pictures.

Despite initial suggestions that the incident was being treated as a crime, police this morning said that they were not treating the incident as suspicious.

A police spokesman said: "A 61-year-old woman has died as a result of a fire that broke out within a property in Comiston Gardens just after 7pm yesterday. There are no suspicious circumstances, and a report will be sent to the procurator fiscal."

As the emergency services dealt with the blaze, fire engines, police cars and police vans spilled out on to Comiston Road, while residents of the street were signed in and out by police officers as they entered or left their properties.

Officers could also be seen conducting door-to-door enquiries in the area while a floodlight shone on to the flat from the roof of one of the fire engines.

There was no visible sign of damage to the ground floor flat from the front of the building.

Fire service group manager Tom McGrath said: "There was a fatality at the address, an elderly person that had been involved in the fire. There's no case to say it was a suspicious fire. It is under investigation, but this is part and parcel of our procedures. The seat of the fire appears to have been in the living room, although it affected all of the flat with smoke."

In January a man in his 40s died in a blaze in his East Lothian home in January. He was pulled from the burning bungalow in Monkmains Road, Haddington, by firefighters but pronounced dead at hospital.

There are around eight fire deaths in Lothian and Borders every year.

Last year the fire service launched a safety drive after four pensioners died in Edinburgh house fires in four months.

The three women and one man died in separate incidents all related to heating appliances.

Two of the cases involved clothing or blankets catching fire after being left on a radiator to dry, while another involved an electric blanket setting fire to bedding. The fourth is believed to have involved a faulty heater.