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Osan Mother Dies After Saving Infant From Apartment Fire Sparked by Lighter and Aerosol

Police plan to seek an arrest warrant for the second-floor neighbor on charges of gross negligence causing a fatal blaze.

Overview

  • The fire broke out around 5:35 a.m. Monday in a five-story commercial-residential building in Osan, Gyeonggi Province.
  • On the fifth floor, parents passed their 2-month-old to neighbors in an adjacent building less than a meter away; the father crossed but the mother fell and later died at Ajou University Hospital.
  • Police say a second-floor resident ignited aerosol spray with a lighter to kill a cockroach, a method she said she learned online, triggering the blaze.
  • Investigators say they will seek an arrest warrant for the neighbor on suspicion of causing a fire through gross negligence and death by negligence.
  • Firefighters extinguished the flames in about 40 minutes; eight people were treated for smoke inhalation as heavy smoke made the stairwell unusable.