NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas – A New Braunfels family is without a home after it went up in flames Saturday afternoon.
James Roberson and his wife, Laverne, were outside their home in the 200 block of Ferryboat Lane, near Dunlap Lake. Their teenaged grandson, was still inside.
"I was scared to death," said Laverne Roberson. "I couldn't get my grandson to come on out."
Eventually, everyone made it out okay.
"My grandson came running out," James Roberson said. "The house is on fire. The house is on fire."
Laverne Roberson said she was house-sitting for her daughter and that the two dogs and two cats never made it out.
"He's been a member of our family," she said. "I mean I'm surprised he didn't come to us when we called. He must have just not been able to or something."
One sheriff's deputy was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation after he tried to save the pets.
"Upon arrival it wasn't clear if everyone was out of the house and the pets and everyone else," said Kelly Kistner, the Guadalupe County Fire Marshal. "The sheriff's deputy made an attempt to find out if there was anybody in the house and he ended up inhaling a large amount of smoke."
When crews arrived, smoke and flames were shooting out of the house, leaving the entire front end destroyed.
"It started up here towards the front end of the house up in an area where there are two bedrooms and a bathroom," said Kistner.
Kistner said Saturday night that the cause of the fire was an unattended heat source in the bedroom.
And while there's not a cost estimate of what was lost right, he said there was heavy damage to more than half of the house.