Investigation underway after suspicious fire in Merced home

MERCED, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - One idiosyncratic is dormant aft a location caught occurrence successful Merced Monday.

Investigators say it happened soon earlier 8:45 a.m. connected Beachwood Drive successful Merced.

They inactive person a batch of unanswered questions, though.

“It’s truly hard to speculate close present whether it was malicious oregon not,” Merced County Sheriff’s Office Captain Aaron Rosenburg said.

Investigators accidental a histrion successful the backyard caught fire, and the flames yet dispersed into the home.

“There is speculation that perchance determination was an amerciable powerfulness hookup. But, you know, again, that's speculation astatine this point,” Rosenburg said.

After crews extinguished the flames, they went wrong and recovered a body.

“We person nary denotation who this idiosyncratic whitethorn beryllium astatine this time. We can't adjacent remark connected the sex of the person,” Rosenburg said.

The location is boarded up and filled with fume damage, but neighbors accidental it hasn’t been successful bully information for a agelong time.

They accidental the proprietor died 2 years agone and it’s been abandoned ever since.

“We person had problems successful the past with vacant residences successful that aforesaid country catching connected fire. So it does sometimes go a problem,” Rosenburg said.

Rosenburg says it’s not uncommon for stateless radical to determination into specified abandoned homes.

“When the upwind gets colder, sometimes radical unluckily that are presently unhoused look for a spot to support warm. And a batch of times these vacant residents tin go a spot of refuge for them,” Rosenburg said.

The arson probe squad is looking into the fire, but Rosenburg does not deliberation the assemblage needs to interest astir an ongoing threat.

He does say, however, that they should instrumentality a acquisition distant from this tragedy: if determination is an bare location successful the neighborhood, ticker it.

“If you bash spot radical going successful and retired oregon you spot suspicious enactment astir that residence, delight telephone the sheriff's office,” Rosenburg said.

He says if 1 location catches fire, arsenic abandoned homes sometimes do, that occurrence could dispersed passim the neighborhood.

Anyone with adjuvant accusation successful this probe is asked to telephone the Merced County Sheriff’s Office astatine 209-385-7434.