An overloaded electrical outlet is believed to be the cause of a fatal fire in Des Moines Sunday.
Firefighters arrived to find heavy smoke coming from the house on the southeast side of the city and were told by two residents who escaped that another person was still inside. They found 89-year-old Deloise Veith dead in a first-floor bedroom.
The initial investigation indicates a space heater and refrigerator plugged into the same outlet overloaded a circuit and started the fire. There were smoke alarms in the home and a fire monitoring service had called firefighters.
The report says several animals also died in the fire, including, cats, birds and a hedgehog.