One person dead in house fire on Clay Avenue, investigation ongoing
Investigators are on the scene of a house fire on Clay Avenue that left one person dead, according to the Lexington Fire Department.
The fire on the 300 block of Clay Avenue was first reported to firefighters early Tuesday morning, according to the fire department. Upon arrival, firefighters spotted heavy fire conditions.
Several hand lines were pulled and firefighters fought the blaze from inside the structure until it was extinguished.
Once the fire was out, firefighters began investigating and found human remains, said Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn. The remains had fallen through the main floor into the crawl space, explaining why they weren’t initially found.
The coroner was called to the scene and confirmed the remains. An identity and cause of death has not yet been determined.
“We think it’s probably the occupant that leased this apartment,” Ginn said.
The residence was a three-unit apartment - two units on the left and right on the main floor and one unit on the second floor. The fire originated in the right-side unit and spread to the other two units.
The other two units were uninhabited and the structure is a complete loss, according to the fire department.
Due to the unknown nature of the incident, homicide investigators will be on scene to determine if the death was foul play. Ginn said the procedure is a rule of thumb when there are so many unanswered questions in an investigation.
“In no way am I saying that this is a homicide, but we want to try to preserve as much evidence in this death investigation that we possibly can, so in order to do that, I’ve called robbery/homicide,” Ginn said. “We’ve got a lot of investigators that are here that have their eyes on everything that we’re doing so we can preserve all that evidence.”
Investigators said they will be on scene for a while to determine what happened, and the block will be closed for another one or two hours.
