A man's remains were found buried under heavy debris from a collapsed roof two days after a fire tore through a residence in the Creekside Estates mobile home community in Citrus Heights, and police are now investigating his death as suspicious. The discovery came once crews determined it was finally safe to sift through the wreckage.
According to The Sacramento Bee, Citrus Heights police officers and Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District personnel responded at 10:10 p.m. Wednesday to a residential fire in the 6200 block of Plymouth Rock Lane, within the Creekside Estates community just south of Greenback Lane. It wasn't until detectives returned to the site around 10 a.m. Friday, after the scene was cleared as safe to enter, that they uncovered the remains of a deceased male trapped beneath the fallen roof.
Coroner and Fire Officials Assisting Investigation
Metro Fire and the Sacramento County Coroner's Office are now assisting Citrus Heights police with the investigation, the report notes. The victim's identity has not been released and will only be made public by the coroner's office once family members have been notified. The cause of death remains under investigation pending autopsy results, and police have not disclosed what led them to treat the death as suspicious.
Fires that collapse structures on top of victims have complicated death investigations elsewhere in California before. In 2013, the remains of a badly burned adult male were discovered following a mobile-home fire in Monrovia, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times. Searching through fire wreckage for human remains has also proven painstaking in far larger disasters, as investigators found during the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, where Government Technology reported that crews had an extraordinarily difficult time sifting through ashes to locate victims.
What Investigators Have Not Confirmed
Citrus Heights police have not released the victim's age or any other identifying details, and the origin and cause of the fire itself have not been disclosed. It also has not been stated whether anyone else was injured in the blaze or what condition the rest of the mobile home was left in. No charges or suspect information have been announced in connection with the case.
Anyone with information about the fire or the man's death is asked to contact the Citrus Heights Police Department at 916-727-5500. The department has not indicated when it expects to release further details, and the case remains active as detectives await results from the coroner's office.
