A body was found in a condemned home early Sunday morning on Ash Loop, following a fire that consumed the structure.
Firefighters with the Española Fire Department discovered the body in the abandoned house after neighbors reported a fire on the property around 3 a.m. The fire department arrived on scene about four minutes after they received the call from the Española/Rio Arriba County E-911 Dispatch Center.
Assistant Fire Chief John Wickersham said firefighters had difficulty getting inside the building because it was boarded up. They eventually accessed the home through a back entrance and worked their way to the front of the structure to open the front door.
Firefighters found the body in the living room.
“He was obviously deceased and we start the investigation from there,” Wickersham said. “Our fire marshal (Pablo Montoya) did the investigation.”
The incident is still under investigation and Montoya will continue to work with the New Mexico State Marshal and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
The bureau is the federal agency responsible for investigating arson and fire-related crimes.
The name of the dead man and cause of death was unavailable as of press time.
Wickersham said the Office of the Medical Investigator of the State of New Mexico took possession of the body.
People were known the be occupying the vacant property, Wickersham said. A few weeks ago, Española Police Department officers found people inside the home and ordered them to leave.
City officials did not return messages on Monday asking whether the home on Ash Loop was part of the city’s Clean and Lien program. This program allows the city to clean abandoned and neglected properties and place liens on them. If the property owner does not take responsibility and pay any associated cleanup costs, the city can obtain ownership of it. Any structures on the property can be demolished and the property can be sold or used by the city.
As temperatures drop, it is common for people without shelter to light fires to stay warm.
City Manager Lauren Reichelt said the way to keep people safe is to get them off the street and into treatment within 48 hours.
“People are going to go into boarded up houses if they are cold and on the street,” she said. “So we have to figure out what is the way in Española to get people off the street.”
Jailing people for long periods of time will not work and there is a need to create more shelters or expand existing ones, she said.
The existence of the city’s only shelter, the Española Pathways Shelter, is in limbo after the Planning and Zoning commission denied its Special Use Permit earlier this year. The city council was scheduled to hold a public appeal hearing on the permit on Tuesday during its regularly scheduled meeting.
The council and Reichelt have also started discussions about the creation of what is being referred to as a treatment jail, where people who are arrested can immediately access medical treatment for substance abuse disorder and mental illness.