Fort Meyers Beach, FL – Investigators pulled a woman’s body from the burnt rubble of an Estero Boulevard duplex Monday afternoon after it exploded overnight.
The explosion sent two people to area hospitals, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said and were reported as being in stable condition later that night.
Fort Myers Beach, Bonita Springs, Iona-McGregor and South Trail firefighters fought that flames that started about 10:20 at 3748 Estero Blvd.
“When firefighters arrived, the duplex was fully engulfed,” said a sheriff’s office statement.
Officials still have not said what caused the explosion or confirmed the death.
“There won’t be any information until (Tuesday),” said sheriff’s office spokesman Lt. Jeffrey Dektas.
Although authorities have yet to identify the body, a neighbor said the body is that of Joanne Finney, who has lived in the area for more than two decades.
That neighbor, Patrick Genualdi, lives two buildings down from the property and said Finney was a staple in the neighborhood.
“The thing that got us suspicious was that she wasn’t there with us” looking at the rubble, he said.
Genualdi, 54, said she has worked at Reese’s Restaurant for the last 10 years and had several pets including her bulldog, Winston, and mutt, Regs, whom she would both walk around the block every day.
“She did love her dogs,” Genualdi said.
He said the fire damaged more than the neighborhood’s heart.
The intense blaze melted whole sides off of homes as far as the other side of Estero Boulevard. The temperature of the flames discolored and warped the slats of a once-white plastic fence into what looked like a paint swatch displaying different hues of the color peach.
Terri Griffith manages the Island Club Manor apartments next to the destroyed building and said the side of the two building were melted from the heat.
“We were sitting there and we heard a huge boom, something definitely exploded,” Terri Griffith, 55, who lives across the street from the fire, told The News-Press on Sunday night. “We called 911 and the operator kept telling me to get back. Stuff was falling out of the sky.”
Griffith had burns on her back from falling embers, she said.
“We could feel the heat, I thought our whole neighborhood was going to go up it was shooting up so high,” she said.
Her niece, Juliet Griffith, 13, said she called 911.
“I saw a huge cloud of smoke,” she said. “We ran up and the whole place was burning.”
Wendy Vetts, who lives outside of Orlando, was spending the weekend on the Beach with family members from Pittsburgh. They were in the Island Club Manor apartment next door when her husband thought he heard fireworks.
“I looked out the side windows and we could see all the flames,” she said.
They ran out of the house, her husband without his shoes on.
Vetts’ 12-year-old grandson, Julian, was treated at the scene with breathing treatments.
Memorial Day traffic was snarled on Estero Boulevard for hours.
Longtime neighborhood resident Jerry Sawyer, 75, said Monday afternoon that Finney was a sweet woman.
“She was known for her yard sales about every six months. … She just kind of tried to hustle to make a go of it,” he said.
He said the duplex was split in half and that she lived on the more northern unit while a couple rented out the other.
“It’s grim, the situation here,” he said.
And no one knows that better than 29-year-old David Grider.
Grider was friends with Finney and heard her scream for someone to call 911 just before her home exploded with her inside.
Grider and a man who was driving by and stopped when he saw the flames from the road. After the explosion, they hugged.
“I knew she was stuck and there was nothing we could do,” he said.
Grider, who maintains rental units in the area, said the duplex used propane tanks to heat the home.
“The fire in the front started, and about 2 minutes later, ‘Bam!'” he said.
Grider said he may know why she was still inside.
“From what I hear, she wouldn’t leave the house without her dogs,” he said.
Grider stood shirtless in front of the blackened rubble still wearing the same Coors Light bathing suit bottom he had on when the duplex blew.
“I was a firefighter in swimming trunks,” he said.
Grider winced when they pulled her body from behind the blue tarp.
“It was an explosion where we couldn’t get to it,” he said. “You can only do what you can do.”
The only thing left Finney owned that wasn’t inside the perimeter of yellow tape being trampled upon was her charred license plate that laid upside down in the grass. And Grider kept his foot atop it.
He asked if he could keep it, but authorities said no.
“She was darling lady, too,” he said. “… I’m going to go fishing for her.”