A woman died early Monday after firefighters pulled her from a burning building at the Plaza Hills residential complex in Tulsa, rescuing her and performing CPR before she succumbed to her injuries. The fire broke out overnight and sent crews racing to a two-story building already engulfed in heavy flames by the time they arrived.
According to kjrh.com, police and fire crews were called to the complex at 12:37 a.m., though a separate report from ktul.com states firefighters responded just after 12:30 a.m. Reports also diverge on the building's exact location: krmg.com places the complex near 46th Street and Skelly Drive, while the ktul.com account puts the fire near 41st Street and Sheridan. A separate account from News On 6 identified the woman as elderly and reported she had exited the condo on her own before firefighters arrived, was found outside the back of the building, and was the only person inside at the time, according to officials cited in that report.
Firefighters Battled Heavy Flames Before Pulling Victim Free
Crews found heavy fire pouring from the two-story building upon arrival, per kjrh.com's reporting. Firefighters managed to bring the blaze under control within approximately 20 minutes, the same outlet notes was corroborated separately by ktul.com's account of the response timeline.
Despite the fast knockdown, rescuers were unable to save the woman. The station's report states that firefighters rescued her from the building and provided emergency medical care, including CPR, but she later died. As of the initial reporting, she had not yet been identified, according to kjrh.com.
Cause Still Under Investigation as Fire Deaths Mount
Fire marshals are investigating what sparked the blaze, kjrh.com reports, and no cause had been determined as of the latest update. Tulsa Fire Department spokesperson Andy Little told ktul.com that the Plaza Hills fire marked the department's third fire fatality in the past few weeks, a grim marker for a city already seeing fire deaths climb.
City data help explain the backdrop. The Tulsa Fire Department's community risk assessment, which analyzed incident data from 2019 through 2023, found structure-fire responses rose from 724 in 2019 to 898 in 2023, according to a Tulsa Fire Department report. The same assessment recorded 1,299 fires in multifamily residential properties over that five-year span, compared with 3,358 in one- or two-family properties, and found that medical emergencies made up 72% of all dispatched incidents.
Separate department figures show Tulsa recorded 11 fire-related deaths in 2022, up from six in 2020, with the average running at eight deaths per year, according to kjrh.com. As of Feb. 14, 2023, the city had already logged three fire-related deaths that year. The Oklahoma Safety Council has attributed the broader rise to cold Tulsa winters and higher-than-normal utility prices, which have pushed more residents toward space heaters as a cheaper way to stay warm.
