CLAREMONT — A 29-year-old woman was found dead after a fire tore through a small Myrtle Street home Tuesday night, according to a news release from the Claremont Fire Department.
The state Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victim as Mia Follensbee, of Claremont, on Wednesday evening. The cause of death was determined to be to be carbon monoxide toxicity from smoke inhalation.
Authorities said Follensbee was the sole resident of a one-room “cottage-style” home on 28 Myrtle St. in Claremont.
Crews responded to a call about a fire at the property around 10 p.m. Tuesday. The home, which was built in 1967, shares a lot with a two-unit, two-story house built in 1869.
When firefighters arrived, they found flames coming from a front bay window of the structure, according to the release.
Firefighters were able to get the blaze under control within 20 minutes, the release said.
A medical examiner conducted an autopsy Wednesday, according to Claremont Fire Chief Bryan Burr.
Burr said the cause of the fire is undetermined and it’s unclear whether there were working smoke detectors in the home.
Several neighbors of the Myrtle Street home remember seeing the blaze Tuesday night, including Kim Sapp, who lives in the apartment house on the same property.
She said Follensbee had moved to the home several months earlier after difficulties in her personal life, and she mostly kept to herself, Sapp said.
Sapp said she had seen Follensbee walking her dog in the neighborhood about 45 minutes before she saw flames at the cottage.
Sapp, who ran outside to try to save her neighbor, heard someone yell “help” once before the windows in the house shattered and the flames became too hot to get any closer, Sapp said.
Another neighbor, Lizz Ellis, who lives across from the cottage, was asleep when the fire broke out but was awakened by her husband. Looking outside, Ellis saw flames shooting from the windows of the home and growing steadily larger.
“I just heard the screaming,” Ellis said, adding she doesn’t know where the sound came from.
She was one of several people who called the fire department about the blaze, and also alerted her neighbors. Residents around the area came out to watch as firefighters got the flames under control, Ellis said.
Ellis said she’d never had spoken to Follensbee, but they smiled at each other when the woman went out on walks with her dog.
Ellis said she stayed up for hours after the blaze, wracked with anxiety.
Twenty-eight Myrtle St. is owned by Matthew Baran, of Charlestown, and is assessed at $145,500, according to Claremont property records.
Emails and a call to a phone number listed for Baran were not returned Wednesday.
This is the second fatal fire in Claremont in the past month. In early April, there was a blaze at a mobile home on 21 Dennison Ave. Officials found the owner, Francis Viola Jr., 58, dead inside from smoke and fire injuries.
Burr said that fire originated in Viola’s kitchen, but the department hasn’t determined a cause.
Staff photographer Jennifer Hauck contributed to this report.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.