Woman burned in blaze

A Newport Beach woman was hospitalized after being badly burned early Tuesday in a fire at her Balboa Peninsula home.

The fire was caused by flammable liquids that ignited inside the kitchen of the house in the 500 block of 34th Street just before 10 a.m., officials said.

Elizabeth Kenny, 42, was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana. Hospital officials could not provide information on her condition.

Police crime-scene investigators were called to house to assist in the investigation of the cause of the fire. Fire officials determined that the blaze was started by accident.

Residents in the quiet neighborhood gathered in the street Tuesday, as fire and police investigators searched the house for clues.

Neighbors called 911 when they heard a pop and saw flames and smoke shooting from the front window of the home. Several neighbors rushed to help the woman and used a garden hose against the blaze before firefighters arrived.

Leon Ettensperger, who lives across the street, was the first one to get to the burning home. He pulled the woman onto the grass in front of the house and turned off the electricity to the home, he said.

“She was outside screaming,” Ettensperger said.

Kenny told Ettensperger that she had been using turpentine in the kitchen, he said.

Margaret Mercado was helping someone across the street when she saw the flames. Mercado said the woman had black burns on her legs and the hair on her head was burned off.

“She was just frantic,” Mercardo said.

Kenny had rented the small white house on 34th Street for a short time but had lived in the neighborhood for several years, neighbors said.

Fire Department investigators determined that the woman was using flammable liquids inside the house when the fire started, but it is unknown how the substances were being used, Fire Department spokeswoman Jennifer Schulz said.

The fire caused $50,000 in damage to the home and its contents, Schulz said.dpt.26-fire-2-CPhotoInfo2M1QAODJ20060426iyavguncPHOTOS BY KENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)At left Newport Beach Fire Capt. Chip Duncan takes pictures inside a Balboa Peninsula house that caught fire Tuesday. dpt.26-fire-1-CPhotoInfo2M1QANPI20060426iyavgtnc(LA)Above, Engineer Andy Hopper, left, and Firefighter Roman Taijeron of the Newport Beach Fire Department look through the window of a house that caught fire in Newport Beach on Tuesday. A woman was badly burned in the fire.