Arizona gran, 58, dies ONE DAY before her birthday after boyfriend poured petrol on backyard fire pit

Tammy Dodson, a grandmother of three and Veterans Affairs nursing assistant from Prescott Valley, Arizona, had burns over 53 percent of her body after her boyfriend tipped petrol from a gas can onto a fading backyard fire pit, setting off an explosion that engulfed her in flames. She was intubated for ten days at a Phoenix burn centre, enduring multiple surgeries and skin grafts, before dying on October 4 — just one day short of what would have been her 59th birthday. Her sister Tina Carl told reporters she was "very angry" that Dodson had been taken this way.

The blast was powerful enough to send the gas can flying onto a neighbour's roof; the boyfriend walked away with only minor injuries and did not require hospitalisation.

Dodson's family described her as "the light of our family" on a GoFundMe page set up to cover funeral and hospital costs.

Carl urged the public to keep petrol and accelerants well away from open flames, saying: 'I don't want anybody ever to throw gasoline onto fires.'