Teen Girl Dies as Fire Destroys Rancho Santa Margarita Home
A teenage girl died Friday after a fire swept through her family’s two-story Rancho Santa Margarita home, officials said.
Authorities did not immediately release the name of the girl, whom they believed to be 15.
“Everything inside the house is gone,” Capt. Stephen Miller, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority, said of the 6 p.m. blaze at 3 Via Encaro. “I haven’t seen a house this completely destroyed in a long time.”
The girl, who appeared to be the only one home when firefighters found her unconscious in an upstairs bedroom, died a short time later at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center, Miller said.
The cause of the fire, which 27 firefighters extinguished in about an hour, is under investigation, he said.
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