Fire that killed double amputee in her Bronx NYCHA home sparked by candle

A fire that killed a churchgoing Bronx woman who lost both legs to diabetes was sparked by an unattended candle in her apartment, the FDNY said Wednesday.

The Sunday morning fire inside Edith Browne’s 13th-floor apartment at NYCHA’s Butler Houses on Webster Ave. was deemed accidental, the department announced on Twitter.

A smoke alarm was present in Browne’s apartment but wasn’t operational, the FDNY said.

Browne, 59, was on a waiting list to transfer to an apartment on a lower floor to make getting around easier, friends said. She relied on prosthetic legs and a rolling walker because her electric wheelchair didn’t work and her insurance company denied her a new one.

She had little chance of escaping when the blaze broke out about 12:50 a.m., friends said.

Medics rushed Browne to BronxCare Health System, where she died.

“I was trying to fight for her to get a wheelchair, an operative wheelchair. Insurance plans, from what I know, didn’t approve it,” a close friend who gave his name only as Aaron, 55, told the Daily News Sunday. “She should have had it from the time she has her legs amputated from diabetes. … It could have contributed to her not being able to get out fast enough.”

Despite her hardships, Browne remained active and was a beloved neighborhood fixture even after her legs were amputated below the knees because of diabetes.

She played card games in the courtyard of her building in Claremont Village, reminisced about her time playing basketball before getting sick and went to church every Sunday.

A neighbor who gave his name as Tony, 58, had just seen the victim before the blaze broke out.

“I had goosebumps when I heard it — I just left her not too long ago, ” said Tony, who has known Browne for 30 years. “She didn’t have nobody helping her. I don’t know why. Nobody was helping her.”