SAN MARCOS, Texas — On July 20, 2018, someone set fire to the Iconic Village Apartments, killing five people.
Twenty-year-old Dru Estes of San Antonio, 21-year-old Belinda Moats of Big Wells, 19-year-old Haley Michele Frizzell of San Angelo, 21-year-old David Angel Ortiz of Pasadena and 23-year-old James Phillip Miranda of Mount Pleasant lost their lives.
"I met with one of the families for breakfast first thing this morning, and that's something that we've done every year since then," San Marcos Fire Chief Les Stephens said. "Some years, we've had almost all of the families affected have come. This year, it was just one that was able to make it. We've got that as a standing thing. And so we keep in touch with them throughout the year."
Chief Stephens was fire chief in 2018 when the fire broke out. He calls it one of those career fires he will never forget because of how devastating it was.
"I don't know that I've ever been to an event that claimed five lives and injured someone to the extent that [Zachary Sutterfield] was injured in any one event in a 34-year career," Stephens said. "Just the magnitude of it and, you know, the harm that was done to those families, the survivors of it, is probably the thing that gets me the most."
Today, a chain-link fence surrounds the property where the building burned. Investigators determined it was set on purpose and spread so quickly due to accelerant. There were no sprinklers or smoke alarms in the building because the owners were not required to retrofit it to modern standards. It was built in the 1970s.
Stephens emphasized that they're still looking for who may have set the fire and are offering a $110,000 reward for legitimate leads to determine who started the blaze.
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