Probe into fatal fire slows but continues

Expectations are that the five bodies recovered Sunday and Monday from the burned remains of the Iconic Village Apartments are those of the five people who were known to be unaccounted for hours after the fire on Friday, July 20.

City of San Marcos spokeswoman said that won’t be immediately known. “Officials are telling us it could take more than a week to do positive identification on the bodies,” she said on Tuesday. Cause of death determination could take even longer. Both are being handled by the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office

The five people who were unaccounted for were identified as James Miranda, Haley Frizzell, Belinda Moats, David Ortiz and Dru Estes. According to the San Angelo Standard Times, Frizzell’s body was among those recovered. The newspaper cited one of her teachers as saying she was staying at the apartment of her brother when the fire broke out. According to her Facebook p, she had graduated from Central High School in San Angelo and studied performance and production at Texas State. The first post on her page was for Float Fest, the two-day music festival that occurred over the weekend.

At the scene of the fire, which also involved part of the Vintage Pads Apartments, the frenetic, multi-agency activity that had been nonstop since Friday slowed a bit Tuesday, but there were still vehicles on site from multiple agencies including the San Marcos Police and fire, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the Texas Task Force 1 urban search and rescue team from College Station.

In a Monday press conference, authorities noted that the investigation into where and how the fire, which broke out around 4:30 a.m., started could take weeks or even month. San Marcos Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner told reporters that the complexity and size of the scene will prolong the probe. “Every piece of evidence...will be touched with investigator’s hands,” he said.

Neither complex was equipped with sprinklers because city codes at the time they were built did not require them. Still unknown is whether smoke alarms were working, as officials acknowledged survivors have said they did not hear any.