SPRINGFIELD, Colo.—Three people died in a fire that destroyed a small restaurant and adjoining residence in southeastern Colorado on Friday, authorities said.
Baca County spokesman Chris Sorensen said a fourth person escaped without serious injuries.
The fire started in the Home Town Burrito at about 2 a.m., when the restaurant was closed. None of the victims names had been released and the cause of the fire was still under investigation.
Sorensen said four family members, including the restaurant owners, lived in the residence. He said authorities haven’t been able to locate the owners but said it was too soon to say whether they or their relatives were the victims.
Sorensen said he had no information on the family and didn’t know whether the person who escaped the fire had lived there.
Mayor Jay Suhler said the restaurant owners were a husband and wife who lived in the residence with their teenage son and the wife’s mother.
“Everybody’s shocked about the loss of life,” he said.
He said the husband and wife were originally from Springfield and had moved back after living for some time in Pueblo, about 120 miles to the east.
Suhler said the restaurant was an older, wood-framed building that had been remodeled.
Homes one block north and south of the fire were temporarily evacuated because of the fire.
Suhler the heat of the fire melted the lights and broke the windshield on the town’s only fire truck. He said a rural fire department in neighboring Prowers County has offered to loan Springfield a truck until the damage can be repaired.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation was helping investigate the fire because Baca County doesn’t have its own fire investigator.
Springfield, a town of about 1,400, is 200 miles southeast of Denver and near Colorado’s borders with Oklahoma and Kansas.
