Overnight house fire kills elderly couple

With only a week before Christmas a house fire claims the lives of an elderly couple Friday night.

It happened shortly before 11 p.m. on the 1800 Block of Tom Bolt Drive in East El Paso.

Police are telling ABC-7 the two people killed in the fire were 77-year-old Guillermo Franco and 76-year-old Natalia De La Pena Franco.

Saturday neighbors told ABC-7 they are in shock after finding out the couple died.

Fire crews say when they got to home they saw heavy smoke and flames.

Nearby neighbors were awakened by sirens.

“I just smelled something burning,” said next door neighbor, Mario Villegas.

“I looked outside and I saw clouds of smoke,” said Alyssa Ramos, who lives across the street.

Ramos managed to capture video on her phone.

“When I walked outside that’s when I saw the flames at the back of the house,” Ramos said.

“It was pretty ugly there was smoke everywhere. There was a bunch of people all over the place,” Villegas said.

Ramos tells ABC-7 first responders where asking her if she knew if there was anyone inside the home at the time.

“They are an elderly couple so I knew they were in there,” Ramos told ABC-7.

Once inside fire crews found Guillermo dead. His wife Natalia, was rushed to the hospital.

“I saw them take her out, that was an ugly thing to see,” Ramos said.

Natalia eventually died from her injuries.

“It was devastating, right before the holidays it’s very sad,” Ramos said.

“They were nice people, very nice people it’s pretty sad,” Villegas said

A spokesperson for the El Paso Fire Department tells ABC-7 the cause of the fire is still under investigation.