First Space Heater Tragedy of the Year Burns Down 96-Year-Old Woman's Home

via CBS Miami

​Every year when the temperatures dip below 50 degrees Miamians freak out. Every year we collectively empty out the space heater isles of our local stores. Every year someone inadvertently ends up burning the house down with that space heater. 2012 is no different.

A 96-year-old woman is now without her home of 40 years after it got badly damaged in a fire.

According to NBC Miami, the woman, Estrella Aviles, had plugged a portable space heater into an outlet that already had too many plugs inserted in it. The overload led to an electric short which caused a fired in another room of the woman's Little Havana home at 345 Southwest 15th Ave.

The elderly woman's caregiver discovered the fire, but the woman didn't want to leave her home until firefighters arrived. So the caregiver began screaming. Luckily a good Samaritan overhead the screams and was able to rescue both women from the blaze.

The house, while not completely destroyed, was deemed unlivable once firefighters extinguished the blaze. Aviles will now temporarily live with her caretaker.

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