AFD finds body while responding to grass fire in northwest Austin
AUSTIN, Texas - Austin firefighters found a body Friday morning while responding to a grass fire in northwest Austin. Austin police are now calling the death a homicide.
At 5:07 am Austin fire department was dispatched to the 6300 of Mesa Dr. after residents noticed a small grass fire.
Firefighters say about 10 feet of grass was burning.
As they were extinguishing the fire, firefighters found the body.
"Upon arrival they located an individual that appeared to be deceased," said Peter Kovach, with the homicide unit at Austin Police Department.
Austin fire reached out to Austin Police Department to assist. APD is now calling the death a homicide.
"Homicide detectives been on scene interviewing witnesses and conducting processing the scene with crime scene units," said Kovach.
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APD says this is the city's 47th homicide this year.
"Due to it being early in the investigation and the sensitive of the nature of the investigation we're not going to release at this point exactly what the manner of injuries that would lead us to believe it’s a homicide, it's early on, we'll be updating y’all as we get more information," said Kovach.
Several neighbors told FOX 7 off camera that the neighborhood is a quiet one, and that not a lot of crime happens in the area.
"This is obviously a residential neighborhood I don't believe we've had a murder out in this area this year," said Kovach.
There's still no known cause on what started the grass fire. Officials are wanting residents to be vigilant of their surroundings.
"It's obviously dry out we've had a lot of wildfires and things like that in the area luckily they called in quickly, there was people in the neighborhood that were alert and paying attention," said Kovach.
This is an ongoing investigation by Austin police. Investigators are working on identifying the victim’s family.