Girl fails in bid to save her mother's life as fire engulfs flat
A MOTHER of three died when a blaze ripped through her home.
Jane Rannachan, 44, was overcome by smoke and fumes after the flames engulfed her house in Linwood, Renfrewshire.
Neighbours told how they watched her teenage daughter run screaming to the maisonette to try to help her mother, but she was too late to save her.
Firefighters pulled the body of Mrs Rannachan, who also had two sons, from the burning building but paramedics were unable to save her after the blaze on Sunday at 4:20pm.
Her next-door neighbour Jacqueline Kennedy, 23, said: “I feel so sorry for her children.
“I cannot believe this has happened. They had only moved in a short time ago, but Jane was always friendly and would always chat.”
Another said: “Her daughter was standing outside the house in tears. It is such a shame.”
A neighbour, Margaret Capstick, 80, said: “I had only known the family for a short time. It was such a shock that this happened and I feel so sorry for them.
“I just hope her children have got a relative who can look after them.”
A Strathclyde Police spokesman said: “Emergency services attended [the fire on Millford Drive] and a 44-year-old woman was found dead in the house. There appear to be no suspicious circumstances, but a post-mortem is being arranged to establish the exact cause of death.
“A report has been submitted to the procurator fiscal.”
In a separate incident, ten people had to be rescued by firefighters from a blazing tenement block.
They were trapped after flames engulfed the entrance hall of the four-storey building in Paisley, Renfrewshire, at 10:20pm on Monday night.
A family of five were spotted waving frantically from their first floor flat to raise the alarm after they were forced to break a window to allow smoke to escape.
They eventually climbed down a ladder put up by the fire service.
Five other people, including an elderly resident who had to be carried by firefighters, were also escorted from the other floors of the building.
No-one was seriously hurt and it is thought that the fire, which took just over an hour to put out, started on the ground floor.