79-year-old woman dies in her home, marking Macon’s third fatal fire this year

A 79-year-old woman died in a Macon house fire early Saturday.

Firefighters found Lillian Hill on the floor of her bedroom, said Macon-Bibb County Fire Chief Marvin Riggins.

“Our hearts are heavy for the family,” he said.

A caller a block away from the fire at 3968 Meadowbrook Drive saw the flames and called 911. Firefighters were dispatched just after 1 a.m.

“It was coming through the roof when the caller saw it,” Riggins said. “That had been burning for well over a half-hour, I would think, before it broke out enough and somebody finally saw it.

“It’s in a populated area, but it’s also a typically quiet area, too. So that time of the morning, people are probably in and had gone to bed and were sleeping.”

Hill lived next door to her daughter.

“By the time the daughter knew the house was on fire, it was fully involved,” Riggins said. “I do remember the daughter saying that she was out there, there was just so much heat and smoke and fire that she could not go in.

“My heart goes out to them. It’s a tragic thing,” he said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation, and an official cause of death has yet to be determined. An autopsy is pending, according to the sheriff’s office.

“I do know that she smoked and I do know there were space heaters in the house, and we’re going to go down those trails and see what happens,” Riggins said. “Will we find whether or not it started from a cigarette? Not really sure, with so much damage.

“We’re going to look for that certainly, but it will be hard to dispel that one,” he said.

It’s not known if the space heaters were in use, he said.

“Last night was one of the first nights we had a little bit of a chill factor going on,” Riggins said.

He could not discern whether there was a smoke detector in the home.

“I would want to think there was, but it had such an amount of heat and smoke in there — could it have been consumed by that? It could have,” Riggins said. “I just did not see one.

“But it could have been consumed because the roof over a large portion of the house has been consumed.”

Hill’s death marks the third fatal fire this year in Macon-Bibb County, Riggins said.

In light of the fire deaths, Riggins urged residents to make sure their smoke detectors are working. He advised having a couple of smoke detectors outside of every sleeping area.

He also urged residents to check their space heaters by turning them on well before needed and inspecting them to make sure that they have good cords that won’t heat up and catch on fire.

This story was originally published October 31, 2020 at 1:27 PM.