UPDATE: Youngest victim identified in Pickerel house fire

Courtesy of Diane Turk
Courtesy of Diane Turk(NBC15)
Published: Jun. 25, 2019 at 1:29 PM CDT
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The Langlade County Sheriff's Office has released the name of the 10-month-old girl who died in Tuesday's house fire in Pickerel.

Zoe M. Munoz Soto has been identified as the youngest victim in the fire.

Chief Deputy Daniel Bauknecht tells NewsChannel 7 it could take days or even weeks before investigators are able to positively identify each of the six deceased victims. Baucknecht says an autopsy is underway in Madison Wednesday and identifications will be made using DNA comparisons. He says the process of getting positive identities will be time consuming and his department will release the names of the victims when they are confirmed.

A 34-year-old woman, a 32-year-old man, a 1 1/2-year-old girl, a 3-year-old boy and a 7-year-old boy also died in the fire. The sheriff's office has not released the relationships of the adults and children.

Eight people were in the house when the fire started early Tuesday morning. Two people escaped. Langlade County Coroner Larry Shadick says all eight people were living in the two-story farm home.

The fire is believed to have started on the lower level and spread upward. When firefighters arrived around 6:20 a.m. the home was engulfed in flames.

"The initial call came in for the town of Langlade, then we had mutual aid from Pickerel, we called mutual aid from the Town of Wolf River," says Assistant Langlade Fire and Rescue Chief Don Wineland.

The fire was contained by about 11:30 a.m.

Shadick says there is no reason to believe there was foul play.

The Langlade County Sheriff's Office is investigating the cause of the fire. They are being assisted by the Pickerel Fire Department, Town of Langlade Fire Department, Wolf River Fire Department, The Langlade County Fire Investigation Team and the Wisconsin Department of Justice Fire Investigation Team.

A cause of the fire has not been determined.