First responders could not reach Anne Heche to begin treating the actor as she was trapped, mortally injured, for 45 minutes after her car crashed into a house in Los Angeles last month, according to a report.

Amid appalling flames and smoke from the crash, firefighters could not reach the car for 20 minutes and then couldn’t get it out of the building to extract her for at least another 20 minutes, NBC reported, citing fire department documents and radio communications.

Heche, 53, died from inhalation injury and burns, having also sustained a broken sternum in the crash, and the death was ruled an accident, according to coroner’s results released a few days after she was taken off life support in hospital.

She was injured when her car jumped a curb and smashed into a west Los Angeles house on 5 August. The car and the house burst into flames. Only Heche was injured.

The film and stage actor died without a will, and her 20-year-old son has filed court papers to control her estate.

Homer Laffoon, Heche’s son with ex-husband Coleman Laffoon, filed a petition in Los Angeles superior court on Wednesday requesting that he be allowed to administer his mother’s estate.

The petition lists Homer Laffoon and 13-year-old Atlas Tupper, Heche’s son with her former partner James Tupper, as her only heirs.