RENTON, Wash. -- A Renton woman died in a house fire after chasing her neighbors around the block with a machete, police said.

Police said the woman appeared to have perished after setting her own house on fire.

The incident started in the Renton neighborhood along Northeast Sixth Place just after 8:30 p.m. Monday.

Witnesses told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News that the 52-year-old woman was chasing her neighbor and her neighbor's child with a machete and a knife.

Police responded at the duplex once calls came in from witnesses.

Investigators said the woman first holed up in her house and eventually set the building on fire. She died in that fire, they said.

Many people in the neighborhood insisted that tear gas, which police fired into the woman's home, is what caused her death.

Police said they fired a bean bag that broke a window in the home to ventilate the fire, and that the victim died from the fire that she set.

Renton police also told KIRO that they do not carry tear gas in their squad cars.