Pett's body was on the floor, her head against the grate of the fireplace, her torso stretched across the hearth, and her legs on the wood floor, and it was described as "appearing like a Block of Wood burning with a glowing Fire without Flame." Her daughter poured two bowls of water on the body to quench the smolder, which produced a thick and noxious smoke as her neighbours arrived to help. Pett's death is one of the earliest published accounts of a strange fire death being attributed to an internal source of ignition.