A South Carolina elderly couple was found dead inside their home with extremely high heat. Fire officials say the inside of the home felt like an oven with the furnace exceeding 1,000 degrees.
“It’s not necessarily like anything I’ve ever seen before,” said assistant chief of the Spartanburg Fire Department, Brad Hall.
He was there when his crews discovered 84-year-old Joan Littlejohn, and 82-year-old Glennwood Fowler dead in their bedroom.
“For me, it was similar to after a structure fire when you’re inside working doing overhaul search and creating fires, and everything around is just hot, the walls, the floor, roof is hot,” he said. “My concern is that there could be a fire somewhere hidden that they were aware of.”
An oven is how he described it. Crews found candles melted enough, they had fallen over the floor. Firefighters detected a temperature in the home over 100 degrees.
After ruling out high carbon monoxide levels, firefighters made their way to the basement heater which measured at over 1,000 degrees. With that furnace type it typically reaches 700 to 800 degrees.
“It felt like it had been quite warm in the house for a quite a long time to get the house that warm.” said Hall.
The victims family told the police both the heater and hot water were out. Days before, a family member noticed the pilot light on the hot water heater was out then began “fiddling with it” moving a wire and the light came back one.
After not hearing from their parents for days, family members called for a welfare check police said.
“If there was a malfunction in the heater itself, and they quote ‘messed with it’, then you can bypass a safety feature or caused the situation to get worse it could’ve produced carbon monoxide, it could have caused it to heat like that.”
Hall recommends cutting off the breaker if you notice temperatures over 85 degrees and to have your heating system inspected once a year and be careful when using portable heaters.
According to an autopsy report, the cause of death has not been determined but officials say the victims bodies temperatures exceeded 106 degrees.
Copyright 2026 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.