Las Cruces woman dies after house fire

Family an friends are mourning after a house fire claimed the life of an elderly Las Cruces woman.

It happened shortly after 7 a.m. Friday morning on the 1100 block of Circle Drive in central Las Cruces.

The woman who died in this fire was 68 years old.

A longtime friend told ABC-7 she lived alone but was a very social person

“They tried to get in through a side window and they broke a side window but by then he noticed everything was black,” said nearby neighbor Susan Brown.

Brown told ABC-7 she’s known the woman who died in the fire close to 50 years.

“We went to high school at Las Cruces high school,” Brown said.

As fire crews arrived early Friday morning they saw smoke coming from inside the home.

Outside the home the damage isn’t visible, but taking a closer look at the windows, they are stained black from the smoke.

Fire crews found the woman unresponsive in the dining area.

She was taken to memorial medical center where she was pronounced dead.

While police have yet to identify a cause of the fire, Brown says she thinks it could have been a space heater that started it.

“She was using a space heater, a big no no,” Brown said.

Brown told ABC-7 the woman had come a long way after a setback years ago.

“She had a stroke six or seven years ago that paralyzed her on the right side,” Brown told ABC-7.

Despite the disability Brown tells ABC-7 she was a very active person.

“Even after the stroke and she recovered somewhat, then she and the lady that lives on the other side of my house would take a walk through the cemetery and what have you almost every day,” Brown said.

Brown said she’ll miss the woman, and so will the rest of her close friends

“They had a music group here in the neighborhood — of older women that would meet here every Wednesday and they would have their sewing group faithfully every week,” Brown said.

Fire officials have not yet determined the cause of the fire.