Experts from the Crime Scene Analysis and Investigation units of the Scientific Police General Commissariat were dispatched to Valencia from Madrid last Friday. They joined fire investigation specialists from the Valencia brigade to inspect, conditions permitting, the residence at door 86 of the 14-story tower. This is the location where the devastating blaze began that left ten dead, 15 injured, including a firefighter with hand burns who remains hospitalized, and reduced the residential complex housing 127 units across two towers to rubble.
Initial suspicions point to an electrical origin, inferred from the fire’s behavior in its early moments, when the flames remained confined inside door 86. Since the building is fully automated and powered solely by electricity, other potential ignition sources, such as gas, have been ruled out.
Nobody connected at home
The apartment from which the flames spread to the rear facade of the 14-story tower, then to the 9-story section, and finally consumed the entire complex, had been rented. The occupant, a young man, was away on business in Valencia, a common situation given his job, leaving the flat frequently empty.
Early on, the National Police located the tenant. A phone conversation revealed that two years prior he had issues with a water heater, spoke of “sparks,” and that after replacing the appliance no further incidents occurred. The tenant claimed several neighbors had mentioned similar problems, especially with outlets.
If those statements are corroborated by the homicide investigators in coming interviews, the electrical origin hypothesis would gain further support.
There is precedent. Almost twelve years earlier, in 2012, the door 51 residence burned entirely but did not propagate further. The cause was traced to a mobile phone charger plugged into an outlet.
The forensic evidence team on the scene
In any event, those testimonies would be only indicative. What matters most is the investigation the fire experts from the Scientific Police will conduct starting today, once the building has cooled, inside the door 86 apartment.
So far, no formal inspection has determined the inferno’s cause, nor has there been an official assessment of whether the rapid spread across the property was driven by the facade’s coating materials, specifically the core plastic (polyethylene) in the composite that covered the exterior wall.
Since firefighters gained access to the structure on Friday morning, while the last flames still smoldered and one tower faced a renewed flare-up, the priority was to search for and recover the mortal victims. Drones used at night by the fire crews had already confirmed five fatalities on the first night.
The first four-member family—mother, father, a two-year-old boy, and an eight-day-old girl—were located in the door 97 residence. Their discovery was swift because relatives had been in contact with them up until the moment of discovery. This allowed firefighters to guide a drone to that exact apartment as the worst forecast was confirmed.
That night, another body was found. By morning, 14 people were reported missing, then five remained unaccounted for. Fortunately, those others were later detected alive during intense searches by the National Police, and their names were removed from the list.
Priorities in locating the bodies
Joint teams of firefighters and Scientific Police, along with the homicide squad chief leading the inquiry, entered the building with a single focus: recover the corpses, complete the judicial lifting, and initiate prompt identifications and autopsies.
This objective was achieved quickly. The first nine bodies were recovered between 14:00 and 19:30 on Friday, the maximum hour set by the firefighters because interior visibility had collapsed as the fire reduced the interior to a skeletal frame.
The last corpse, the tenth, was found in the early hours of Saturday and transported with the others to the Institute of Legal Medicine (ILM).
The procedure was identical for all cases. Before lifting each body, the Scientific Police photographed and documented the exact apartment location and the state of the victim. In every instance, the apartment and the body matched, providing pre-identification since each missing person’s location corresponded to a found body within that dwelling.
One by one, the bodies were moved to a UME tent set up in front of the complex’s single entrance. After a preliminary examination for identifying clues, each was assigned a code and placed in funeral vehicles bound for the ILM. The four family members were kept together in a single vehicle, while the remaining five were allocated to two additional cars.
Heat levels and the autopsies
That Friday afternoon marked the start of the initial autopsies, which preliminary reporting indicated confirmed deaths due to smoke inhalation and postmortem burn injuries. The extreme temperatures reached inside the building, estimated above 800 degrees with possible peaks near 1,000, hindered determining the exact cause of death for several victims. Nevertheless, the dense, toxic black smoke, largely from burning plastics used in the facade, supports the conclusion that inhalation of carbon monoxide was the principal cause when tests could be completed, as evidenced by elevated carboxyhemoglobin levels in those tested.
Forensic teams concluded autopsies by late Saturday afternoon. In parallel, fingerprinting and identification tests proceeded, while forensic analysts attempted to extract DNA where feasible. Although some bodies have been tentatively identified by fingerprinting, formal legal recognition awaits genetic confirmation.
Three tiers of identification
To advance the process, the two analysis specialists from the Crime Scene Unit collected body samples and those from the families, enabling results to be expected early in the week. In a few cases, DNA extraction may not be possible. For those instances, anthropological, radiological, and dental evidence will be used to confirm identity, aided by knowing the exact apartment where each person was found. Family members have been asked to provide medical records, surgical notes, radiographs, and other evidence to determine identity from skeletal analysis.
Only when this process is complete will judicial handover of the bodies to the families proceed, through the appropriate funeral services, to allow for the planned rites in each case.