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Body found inside burning west Forsyth home ID'd

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By: Kayla Robins
WEST FORSYTH — The person whose body was found inside a burning home Monday morning in west Forsyth has been identified as a 57-year-old man, Forsyth County fire officials said. Investigators have not determined a cause of death, so it remains unclear if Richard Hunt died before the fire or as a result of it.“All indications are that [he] was here alone,” said Fire Division Chief Jason Shivers. While investigators “feel confident that the fire was accidental in nature,” neither the cause of the blaze nor its origin have been determined. The tragedy was the second to strike the Hunt family in the past seven months. According to Shivers, family members living nearby said Hunt lost his son, 27-year-old Alexander Robert Hunt, in a single-vehicle wreck on June 16. The crash occurred on Bentley Road, not far from the elder Hunt’s home at 7797 Holyoke Road near the Cherokee County line. In Monday’s blaze, 23 fire personnel and an ambulance responded about 9:38 a.m. after “several calls” from neighbors and passers-by who apparently saw smoke coming from the home, according to Shivers. Subsequent callers noted that flames had begun to rise from the single-story residence. Shivers said Hunt was dead by the time firefighters got inside.“There was no indication the home had any form of working smoke detectors,” Shivers said. “If the [smoke alarm] system is working, we can hear it when we pull on scene.” He said firefighters did find an “antiquated hardwired alarm system” but that it was not thought to be in service.“With this tragedy comes the lesson that homes should always be equipped with working smoke alarms that are checked regularly,” Shivers said. It was the first fire involving a fatality in Forsyth County since 2013, when there were two. On Oct. 7 of that year, a blaze at the Willows apartment complex on Nancy Lane in Cumming claimed the life of a 78-year-old man. On March 31, 2013 — which was Easter — a 40-year-old woman died after a fire on Shady Grove Road. According to Forsyth County News archives, 2012 and 2011 each had one fatal fire, taking the lives of one and three people, respectively.  Online Editor Jim Dean contributed to this report.

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