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Cigarette, oxygen bottles fuel fire that destroys couple's Port Townsend duplex  

A cigarette and oxygen bottles combined to fuel a fire that destroyed a home early Wednesday morning, leaving its two residents homeless.

The fire, accompanied by explosions heard from miles away from the home at 1068 Cedar St., destroyed Unit B of a single- story duplex. . . .

Jay Reynolds, who was on oxygen for a health condition, often would get up in the night, light a cigarette and step outside to smoke it, Keplinger said fire investigators determined.

Early Wednesday morning, he apparently lit a cigarette, stood up to go outside and passed out or had a seizure, she said.

"He fell to the floor and pulled a tube on the oxygen tank loose," Keplinger said.

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