INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Family members and friends shed tears and embraced as they stood on the outskirts of the home where two of their loved ones died in a fire Friday morning.
It’s up to the State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office to determine how the blaze started in the travel trailer parked in the fenced-in backyard of the home in the 2600 block of 52nd Avenue. Two people — whose names and ages were not released Friday — and a dog perished in the blaze, which neighbors noticed about 6 a.m.
The flames lit the early morning darkness in the neighborhood of single-family homes off 26th Street a few blocks east of 58th Avenue and the retail intersection at State Road 60. Sleepy neighbors awoke to the commotion, walking outside to take a look.
One of those neighbors, 24-year-old Jerome Louis, said a family member woke him up when she saw the flames. Concerned by the proximity, Louis picked up his 4-year-old daughter, Jayla Louis, and stepped out to his front yard.
“She didn’t wake up when I brought her outside,” he said. “I thought the fire was next door to us, but it was two houses down.”
Louis said he’s lived on 52nd for about six months but did not know the family who lived in the home where the fatal fire happened.
A sheriff’s deputy was already at the scene when Louis said he stepped outside. Minutes later, firefighters arrived.
Indian River County Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Brian Burkeen said they found the travel trailer fully engulfed in flames when they arrived. The roof had collapsed and a 6-foot-tall wooden fence next to the trailer was burning, he said.
Firefighters put out the blaze within minutes, aiming water through open windows and the roof.
They discovered the bodies inside the trailer, Burkeen said.
Victims’ advocates were at the scene to talk with family members.
The Sheriff’s Office and the fire marshal will conduct a joint investigation. Crime scene investigators from the Sheriff’s Office entered the charred remains of the trailer to take photos, sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Eric Flowers said.
No preliminary cause for the blaze has been determined.
The burned trailer was one of three recreational vehicles on the property — two were in the backyard, and a Flair RV was parked in the driveway. Authorities said no one else was in the off-white, single-story home on the property when the fire happened
