LUCERNE ? Fire Chief Jim Robbins of the Northshore Fire Protection District Tuesday announced his investigators determined the Monday morning fire that leveled a Lucerne home and killed a man was accidental.
The human remains found in the rubble of a single-wide mobile home on the corner of Second and Highland avenues have yet to be identified, according to Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff”s Office (LCSO). A Monday press release from Bauman said Harry Jon Warner, 58, may have been in the home.
“We believe he was probably smoking in a chair and either fell asleep or something along those lines,” Robbins said. “The chair he was sitting in burnt to just nothing but ashes, there was almost nothing left of it. That gives us a good idea of a V-pattern of the hottest part of the fire.”
Robbins continued, “He probably fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand and it probably caught the chair on fire and him on fire, and he probably tried to get out of the building and didn”t make it because he was overcome by the smoke.”
According to the LCSO release, detectives learned three hours into the investigation that Warner”s wife, Sandra Jean Bronson, was at the home the previous night in violation of a domestic violence protection order.
Bronson was arrested on a charge of violating the restraining order and is being held at the Lake County Jail on $250,000 bail, pending further investigation of the fire, according to the LCSO release.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com, or call her directly at 263-5636, ext. 37.
