KELLER — Investigators have determined that a fire at a home where a woman with multiple sclerosis was found dead Monday afternoon was accidental, Fire Chief Dan Gaumont said Tuesday afternoon.
The fire that claimed the life of Kelli Hundt, 51, was caused by a cigarette, Gaumont said. The Tarrant County medical examiner determined that Hundt died of smoke inhalation.She was found on the floor of their house in the 600 block of Cedarwood Drive by her husband, Bill Hundt, after he arrived home shortly after 4 p.m. Monday. She was lying on the floor between the kitchen and a living area, he said."She called me at 2 p.m. Sometime between then and 4 something happened," he said.Gaumont said the blaze started in the living room and caused more than $100,000 damage to the house, but mainly heat and smoke damage."When the first unit arrived, smoke was coming out of the front door," Gaumont said. "We found a female victim inside -- she was deceased."Keller hasn't had a house fire fatality since sometime in the 1960s, Gaumont said.Firefighters from Colleyville and Southlake and firefighter medics from North Richland Hills assisted Keller, Gaumont said.Hundt said his wife's multiple sclerosis was diagnosed about 15 years ago, shortly after they married. She was in hospice care and was using an oxygen tank."Her body was in a weakened state with the illness," he said. "She just wasn't able to react quickly enough to get out of harm's way."She was trying to hold on so she could see her son, Kamron Wilson, 22, graduate from the University of Texas at Arlington, where he is a junior marketing major, he said."She was super proud of him," Hundt said. "With her being in hospice, we knew this day was coming, but certainly not like this."Susan McFarland, 817-390-7684; Domingo Ramirez Jr., 817-390-7763
