Bellingham woman burned in house fire improving at Harborview

A Bellingham woman who suffered burns in a house fire improved to satisfactory condition this week at a Seattle hospital.

Kristie Lee Baker, 28, awoke around 6 a.m. Oct. 23 to find her mattress on fire in a second-story bedroom at 3705 Beal St. A witness said Baker was on fire when she climbed through a window to a roof that overhangs the porch, leapt to the ground and kept running into a dewy field of tall grass across the street.

An ambulance rushed her to a Bellingham hospital. She’d suffered burns to her hands and face, firefighters said. That morning she was transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Baker’s condition was serious earlier this week, but by Thursday it improved to satisfactory, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Another man in the second-story bedroom escaped with minor burns. He needed treatment for smoke inhalation. Two others in the house — Darren Gordan Overby, 54, who told a reporter he has lived there since the 1980s, and a second woman — fled unharmed.

It could take another week or two for investigators to get a better idea of what caused the fire, said Bellingham Fire Marshal Jason Napier. No working smoke alarms were found in the home.

The upstairs of the house took irreparable flame damage and burned through the roof in some spots. The first story, meanwhile, sustained heavy water and smoke damage.

This story was originally published October 30, 2015 at 4:20 AM with the headline "Bellingham woman burned in house fire improving at Harborview."