Collin County Sheriff’s Office and several local fire departments responded to a home fire in Blue Ridge early Saturday morning, but by the time firefighters and officers arrived at the scene, the house was already consumed by flames.
Emergency personnel transported a 55-year-old woman with significant injuries to the Medical Center of McKinney. Although her condition is severe, the attending physicians expect her to survive. First responders also found the body of a deceased person inside the house.
As of Monday, investigators continue to examine what initially caused the fire. Despite battling the blaze for several hours, the residence was virtually destroyed.
A GoFundMe page dedicated to the woman’s recovery identifies the injured person as Leslie Engelmann, founder and president of Chloe’s Pet Rescue. Engelmann allegedly used the house as the primary care facility for an animal rescue organization. The description relates how the house Engelmann shared with her associate, Cathy Denton, caught fire.
The two women were “rushing to get dogs out when the residence exploded, tossing both Leslie and Cathy. The house, areas used for puppies and nursing mamas, as well as everything she owned, has been lost.”
The page continues to say that Engelmann’s “best friend of over 25 years, Cathy Denton, along with many of the dogs from Chloe’s Pet Rescue, perished in the fire.”
Chloe’s Pet Rescue is a “non-profit organization that typically rescues [its] dogs & cats from local shelters as well as taking in strays.”
The rescue’s website remarks: “These animals are wonderful, and they are only put down because they have no owners to claim & adopt them in time. They are all waiting for that miraculous second chance in life that they so deserve.”
As of the writing of this article, over 500 donors have contributed to the GoFundMe account, giving nearly $35,000 towards the goal of $75,000 to help pay for Engelmann’s recovery.