Woman, 80, Is Killed in Fire

An 80-year-old woman was killed Tuesday afternoon in a fire that gutted her home in Sierra Madre, authorities said.

The blaze was reported about 2:30 p.m. at a home on Sunnyside Avenue, said Sierra Madre Police Lt. Stephen Abernethy. The victim was identified as Mary Kathleen Walling.

Her husband, Roy Walling, 80, was not at home at the time of the fire, Abernathy said.

Police Capt. Charles Kamchamnan said the victim was an avid smoker.

Investigators from the Sierra Madre, Arcadia and Pasadena fire departments were working to determine the cause of the fire.

The value of the home was estimated at $700,000.

The Wallings were married in 1947, according a spokesman for the American Red Cross.

“We are trying to comfort him as best we can,” said Dereck Andrade of the San Gabriel Chapter of the American Red Cross in Pasadena.

“When I first spoke to him, he shook my hand, smiled and then began to sob. He just cried and cried.”