A Whitney Houston fan accidentally set fire to her home while holding a vigil for the singer.
Anne Lomax, 53, had been playing the late star’s records and lit a candle in tribute, but this then caused her Manchester house to catch fire after she’d gone to sleep.
Mrs Lomax was woken up her smoke alarm at 2.30am and escaped unharmed, but her living room was destroyed after the fire, which started when her curtains were set alight and spread to her electrical household items.
“I had been sitting at the computer playing some music and saying a prayer for Whitney Houston,” she said. “I was a big fan and I was just devastated when she died so I thought I’d light a candle.”
She added: “I thought I had blown it out when I went up to bed but the next thing I knew the smoke alarms were going off.”
Houston passed away last Saturday (February 11) at the age of 48, after she was discovered underwater and unconscious in a bath at a hotel in Beverly Hills.
Though it has been widely reported that the she died as a result of an overdose of Xanax and other prescription drugs mixed with alcohol, police have said it may take up to eight weeks for her cause of death to be formally confirmed.
A police spokesman has said that although prescription drugs were present in the singer’s room, reports that they were involved in her death were still only “rumours and speculation”.
by Lorelle Heath
