UPDATE: Del City Man Sets Clothes On Fire While Cooking

LaShauna Sewell, News9.com

DEL CITY, Oklahoma – The Del City Fire Department is praising two investigators who pulled a man from a burning house Thursday morning.

Firefighters responded to a kitchen fire near Monica Drive and Veterans Lane around 9 a.m. on August 25. The first to arrive at the scene were Fire Marshal Jeff Keester and Major Zion Williams. A woman told them her husband, 81-year-old Lawrence Post, stepped too close to the stove while he was cooking and his clothes caught fire.

The woman says she was in another part of the house, smelled smoke and went to investigate. She says she found Post sitting on a chair with his clothes on fire. The woman used water to douse the burning clothes and called 911.

The woman tried to get her husband out of the house, but there was too much smoke. When Keester and Williams arrived, they ran into the house, found Post and pulled him to safety. He was rushed to the hospital and is now in critical condition with third-degree burns on 37 percent of his body.

When other fire crews arrived, they put out the small fire the burning clothes had created. There was minimal damage to the house.

Firefighters say there was not a working smoke detector in the house.