A teen is dead following a fire in Thornbury Saturday in an apartment inside a house.
The exterior of the apartment building on Thornbury's main street shows no sign of the fatal fire that took place there early Saturday morning.
But police have confirmed that 19-year-old Taryn Hill died in her apartment; she was the only person inside. The young mother had two jobs: one at a nearby salon and another at a pub in town. The family has asked for privacy. Management at the restaurant said Hill was known for a persistent smile but declined further comment.
When firefighters arrived at the apartment, the fire that started in the kitchen had already burned itself out. There was a functioning smoke alarm inside but it wasn’t on the ceiling where it was supposed to be.
Blue Mountains Fire Department fire prevention officer Duncan Rydall says the smoke alarm had been taken down.
“It was down on a small end table and not on the ceiling where it would have detected the fire sooner,” he says. “It made the difference of this fire taking the life of someone rather than giving her the opportunity to perhaps escape from her apartment.”
Firefighters in small towns often know the people they are trying to save and this death has hit the community hard. Rydall is imploring everybody to check their smoke alarms now so another tragedy like this can be avoided.
“You want to make sure it has a battery backup, you want to make sure it has a hush feature so you never take it off the ceiling and thirdly you want to make sure it's interconnected so if one sounds in your apartment they all sound,” he says. “It lets everybody know that there is an emergency and to get out, use your emergency escape plan and get to your meeting place.”
Fortunately, Hill's one-year-old daughter Payton was staying with family at the time of the fire. Friends, family, and coworkers are setting up a trust fund for her at the TD Bank in town.
