SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio fire crews battled a fast-moving fire that spread to a pair of South Side homes and killed four family pets early Monday morning.
The fire broke out at a home in the 900 block of Keats Street around 2 a.m.
A passerby saw flames shooting through the roof of the home and alerted everyone inside. They all made it out safe before the roof collapsed, fire officials said.
Bernadette Solano lives next door to the home where the fire started. Solano awoke to the sound of breaking glass and had no idea her uncle's home was on fire.
"I heard somebody screaming, and I heard the dogs going real wild and all this stuff," she said. "And I looked out the window and saw a white truck parked right here and thought somebody was breaking into my uncle's house."
The truck actually belonged to the man who stopped to help.
"He saw and went and started banging and knocking on the window to wake up my cousin, and that's what woke her up. I think he saved them," Solano said.
Solano's cousin yelled for her dad, who escaped the flames through the back door.
"He made it out running barefoot and some other neighbors came walking and took off their shoes and gave it to my uncle," Solano said.
The flames quickly spread to another home before crews put the fire out.
Fire officials called arson investigators to the scene, and they determined the flames appeared to have started with a light and extension cord. The family who lived in the home had put the light in the carport area to make it warmer for their dogs.
The father and daughter who lived in the home where the fire started went to a motel for the night with the help of the American Red Cross.
Residents of the house next door went to a family member's home.
Fire officials did not have a damage estimate.