Overview

• Emergency crews responded around 4 p.m. Saturday to a residence on the 600 block of South Upas Street and found a man dead inside.
• Arson investigators and police detectives, including Escondido police’s Crime Violence Unit, are conducting a full inquiry into the fatal blaze.
• ABC 10News reports the watch commander’s early assessment that the victim had been smoking near an oxygen tank, a cause that has not been finalized.
• Times of San Diego says a bedroom was fully engulfed and the man’s body was located there after firefighters extinguished the flames.
• The victim was described in reports as a maintenance worker who used oxygen for COPD and was a smoker, and local outlets differ on who first called 911.