OAKLEY (KRON) — An elderly woman’s electric blanket went up in flames in Oakley.

It happened on East Cypress Road and that woman is recovering at the UC Davis burn unit.

The woman’s daughter is shaken about what happened. The elderly woman was actually airlifted from outside Iron House Elementary School on Monday morning.

Neighbors described the ordeal.

“The lady that lives down the street has been friends of our family for years. She is an older lady. And from what I understand, the electric blanket caught on fire and she just jumped up and was on fire, so instead of rolling and trying to get it out, she wasn’t aware of that,”  neighbor Sylvia Ray said. “She was in so much pain and…..so freaked out by the whole thing.”

The 87-year-old woman caught on fire in her Oakley house. It happened around 4:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day.

Her daughter tells KRON4 that she heard screaming on the phone. Then, she saw her mother running down the hallway with her back on fire.

The daughter then ran to help her. She said she doesn’t know how the electric blanket caught fire, but it did and left her mother with second and third-degree burns on her back.

The daughter says her mother has health issues including Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember how the fire ignited.

Neighbors KRON4 talked with are hoping their friend recovers quickly.

“God bless her,” Ray said. “All our prayers go out to her….It’s not the first story I’ve heard about electric blankets, so my thought about them is to be aware and to turn them off when you get out of bed in the morning and make sure you don’t leave your bedroom with your electric blanket on.”

KRON4 did also talk with firefighters on Tuesday evening.

They say that electric blankets catching fire is something that is extremely rare, saying that new electric blankets are often built with automatic shut-offs.

Family members tell KRON4 the blanket was around 20 years old.WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON: 

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