Athens man dies in Thanksgiving fire

By Joe Johnson

An Athens man died in an early Thanksgiving morning fire.

Darrell Smith, 53, died after a wood shed in which he lived in the Stonehenge neighborhood caught fire shortly after midnight Thursday, according to Athens-Clarke County Coroner Sonny Wilson.

“He made it outside the building but he had suffered severe burns and was pronounced dead at the scene," Wilson said.

The shed, which the coroner said was destroyed by fire, was located outside a home on Salisbury Plain Drive in Stonehenge, a neighborhood located off Old Monroe Road in western Athens-Clarke County.

The coroner said he believed that Smith was living in the shed with the homeowner’s permission, but the resident was out of town and could not be immediately contacted.

“He had been living there for a while, according to other family members” who lived in Athens, Wilson said.

The cause of the fire was being investigated by the Athens-Clarke County Fire and Emergency Services Department.