THOMASVILLE, GA (WTXL) - A Thomas County man died in a house fire in the Friday early morning hours.
According to the Thomasville Fire Department, a call came in a few minutes before midnight, and crews arrived about five minutes later. However, it took ten minutes for firefighters to calm down the flames so they could get inside the house.
Firefighters said by the time they got in, they found 85-year-old Homer Lewis Hayes dead. They also found the house to be near a total loss.
The State Fire Marshall conducted an initial investigation and came back later Friday morning to investigate the cause.
Fire investigators determined that the fire originated in the living room of the home and was the result of a natural gas leak ignited by an open flame from an appliance.
