A woman fighting against an eviction order died in a fire which she started intentionally along with dozens of cats.
A massive blaze broke out shortly after 11am at the New Jersey property, authorities said, after the woman resorted to desperate measures.
The woman has not yet been identified, but she had been served with an eviction notice by state police when she began refusing to leave the property.
She then turned on the gas supply and started a fire, which also destroyed a neighbouring house.
Neighbours had to be evicted from nearby properties during the police stand-off with the woman.
Several fire crews attempted to rescue the woman but were unable to get her out alive. It is not thought anybody else was injured.
“We’re getting reports that the resident turned on the gas of the residence prior to igniting,” New Jersey State Police lieutenant Lawrence Peele said, in quotes reported by CBS News.
Neighbour Erin Luca told the network: “They knocked on our door this morning. Thank God it was a pretty loud knock - she was threatening with a bomb or to bomb the house and ended up with a fire.”
The woman who died was the sole occupant of the now completely charred house.
Another home attached to the property had been lived in for 22 years by Emma Quackenbush, who told New Jersey 101.5 that she had lost everything in the fire.
“It looks like my house is gone. It’s still standing but it’s not liveable,” Quackenbush said.
The New York Post reported that neighbours gathered at the scene said that the deceased woman’s boyfriend had been trying to evict her for several years, but he had been hindered by a temporary eviction moratorium during the Covid pandemic.
It is unclear how many cats died in the blaze, but Roosevelt mayor Peggy Malkin told the Asbury Park Press that the woman was a pet-sitter who had built a “cat house” for the animals to live in separately.
