FOLSOM, La. — Eighty-four-year-old Ilona Bedo's family said she loved being outside.
“She stayed outside all day almost, doing the flowers, planting flowers and she just she couldn’t grasp that we had a fire ban," Lydia Bedo said.
Lydia Bedo, Ilona's stepdaughter, said Bedo was suffering from pre-dementia.
“I couldn’t get her to understand, since she was Hungarian and it was so hard for her to understand what that meant," Lydia Bedo said, "I think she kept forgetting how dangerous it was.”
According to the State Fire Marshal's Office, a deputy was driving along Highway 25 near Folsom Sunday afternoon when he spotted a brush fire that had spread to a shed.
When St. Tammany Fire District #5 came to extinguish the fire, they found Bedo unconscious.
“We don’t know at this time what led to her falling into the fire, but we do know that she did fall into the fire," State Fire Marshal's Office Public Affairs Director, Ashley Rodrigue, said.
The family said Bedo was flown to University Medical Center where she later died. The family is still awaiting the coroner's autopsy report for the official cause of death.
Folsom Fire Chief, Jamie Truett, said it's the first fatality he's seen from a brush fire.
“I’ve been doing this for a little over 38 years, and I’ve seen nothing like this," Truett said.
Truett said manpower and resources in St. Tammany are being diverted to assist crews fighting wildfires across the state.
“Fire departments in the area are small. We don’t have a lot of manpower; we don’t have a lot of trucks with staff on them. We rely on volunteers, and during the daytime volunteers are at work," Truett said.
Not to mention, Folsom has recently helped out neighboring parishes such as Washington Parish fight brush fires.
Truett said the cause of the fires has been a mixed bag.
“Unauthorized burning, trash piles getting away from people, cigarette butts thrown out on the side of the road. There has been a little bit of arson that is being prosecuted in Tangipahoa and Washington Parish as well," Truett said.
The State Fire Marshal's Office is urging everyone to remember Louisiana remains under a burn ban.
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