Elderly woman dies in Somerville kitchen fire

By Alexander C. Kaufman, Globe Correspondent

A Somerville woman in her 90s was killed in a small kitchen fire early this morning, according to a fire official.

Somerville Fire Deputy Chief Jim Lucia said the woman, who lived alone at 84 Boston Ave., was making coffee at about 7:30 a.m. when her clothing caught fire. She died before firefighters arrived.

“She couldn’t extinguish it,” Lucia said in a phone interview. “She succumbed to the injuries from her clothes catching fire.”

He said the fire caused about $75,000 of damage in the kitchen of the three-bedroom, single-family home. Neighbors called the fire department when they saw smoke billowing from the windows, he said.

“Everything was closed up pretty tight so it almost appeared the fire consumed most of the oxygen in the kitchen,” Lucia said.

He said the fire, which remained in the kitchen, took no more than two minutes to put out.