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A fire at this home on Bowersville Highway left one dead Jan. 27. The investigation as to the cause of the fire is still ongoing.
Hart County firefighters responded to a deadly house fire Jan. 28 on Bowersville Highway.The fire killed a man who was trapped inside.
At 2:15 a.m., dispatch received a call from a man who said that a fire had started in his home, and he needed help getting out. Fire departments across Hart County responded to the blaze, but by the time units had arrived, the entire structure was consumed in flames.
According to Hart County Fire Chief Jerry Byrum, firefighters did as much as they could to bring the fire under control. But the fire was too intense to organize a rescue attempt.
Captain Chris Carroll of the Hart County Sheriff’s Office said that firefighters began interviewing neighbors and family members of the resident of the home, but were unable to locate him and determined if he might still be in the house.
“We haven’t been able to confirm who the individual was yet, but we do know that a man by the name of Richard Gurley was living there at the house,” Carroll said. “Firefighters started looking for him after they couldn’t locate him with neighbors or family, and that’s when they went in and located a body at the side door of the residence.”
Carroll said that a positive identification of the victim has not been determined yet due to the severe “condition of the body.” Carroll did confirm that the body had been sent to a GBI lab for DNA confirmation that the victim was Gurley, but no results have been provided yet to the public since the incident is an active investigation.
Investigators called the State Fire Marshal’s Investigation Unit for help in determining what started the fire, but according to Carroll, they have yet to find the cause of the fire.
“We don’t know what started the fire yet,” Carroll said. We contacted the State Fire Marshal’s Investigation Unit to assist us in determining what started the fire, and they came out yesterday to help us. They looked around and did their investigation on the structure, and at this point, right now at least, they’re saying it’s undetermined just because of the condition of the structure. They were unable to really get in there and dig out anything and see what was what.”
At the time of this report, no further information has been released. The investigation is still ongoing.