Despite the efforts of five different volunteer fire departments, the father of a fire chief lost his home.

Fire broke out at the home on S. Foster Road near Highway 181 shortly before 8 a.m. Thursday. Firefighters with Harmony, St. Hedwig, Gardendale, Lone Oak and China Grove volunteer fire departments responded.

The fire sent flames shooting through the roof and set off ammunition inside the home.

About 30 children at Playtime Day Care, located directly across the street, had to be evacuated as a precaution.

“They just said that they were evacuating them. I just dropped them off," said Kimberly Phillips, through tears. 

Phillips was one of several parents who showed up at a barricade about a half mile from the fire scene, hoping to get close enough to pick up her children.  She said her 17 month old twins suffer from asthma, and she worried they would have trouble breathing with all the smoke in the air.

Within minutes, though, about 30 children from the day care had been loaded onto a school bus headed for nearby Harmony Elementary School.

Back at the fire scene, firefighters struggle to save the home, although, in the end, there was nothing they could do.

Craig Roberts, interim Bexar County Fire Marshal, said the fire quickly got the upper hand, due, in part, to a strangers attempt to lend a helping hand—a passerby who broke out windows and kicked in a door, allowing the fire to spread quickly.

"It was probably in an effort to find out if anyone was in the house and do what he could to try and rescue any individuals inside there,” Roberts said. 

“But basically what that did by kicking in the windows, knocking out the windows and kicking in the back door, it allowed more oxygen to the fire.

Roberts said the house and everything in it were destroyed.

No one was home at the time, but Roberts said the house belongs to the father of the chief of Harmony’s volunteer fire department.

As of 10 a.m., the cause of the fire had not been determined.