Police probe fatal Confluence blaze
CONFLUENCE – State police are still trying to determine the cause of a fire that killed a Confluence woman Wednesday morning at her residence. Sarah Younkin, 33, died of carbon monoxide poisoning secondary to smoke inhalation, said Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller.
Confluence Fire Chief Tom Close said Younkin lived with her son in a trailer at 496 Peck Road, four to five miles outside the borough.
Her son had stayed the night at his grandparents’ residence and was not home when the fire began, said Close.
Close said he did not know how or where in the trailer the fire started.
The Confluence Volunteer Fire Department received the call at 6:39 a.m. and was able to extinguish the fire by 11 a.m.; however, Close said the trailer was fully engulfed in flames by the time the first truck arrived on the scene.
Close said the firefighters had difficulty fighting the fire because of the narrow, snow-covered, township roads.
“We had big problems,” he said. “The road wasn’t wide enough for two tankers to pass each other, so one tanker had to dump the water and go back out to allow another tanker in.”
Confluence firefighters were assisted by crews from Markleysburg, Addison, New Centerville, Rockwood and Friendsville, Md.
Close said this was the third fatal fire in Somerset County this year, and he estimated the damage at $75,000.