LAGUNA HILLS : Woman Dies in Apartment Fire

Firefighters found the body of an elderly woman in her apartment Sunday, about 15 hours after neighbors had smelled smoke in the building, authorities said.

A spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said the death is being treated as an accident. The woman, whose name is being withheld until relatives can be notified, apparently had fallen asleep with a cigarette, Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Francis said.

Sheriff’s and fire officials discovered the body shortly after 11 a.m. at the Leisure World Apartments in the 500 block of Avenida Sevilla.

Francis said the body, which was partly burned, was a few feet from a charred sofa. “We suspect that she must have died of smoke inhalation,” he said.

Lauretta Daly, who occupies one of the eight units in the building, said she remembered smelling smoke in the building around 8 p.m. Saturday. “It was slight,” said Daly, 85, who is blind. “I really didn’t think anything about it.”

Another neighbor, who requested that his name not be used, said he also smelled smoke in the building Saturday night but was not suspicious. “But when I went outside in the morning and saw the window blackened inside, I knew there was a fire, so I called the police,” he said.

Francis said the fire was confined to the couch and apparently went out before it could spread.