2 dogs rescued after fire at Northeast Side apartment complex

Firefighters searched, then carried pets from smoky apartments

SAN ANTONIO – Long after the flames had been extinguished, fear still showed on the face of a woman who lived in the Northeast Side apartment building that had caught fire Wednesday morning.

She wasn’t worried about any people or property.

Instead, her concern was for a little white Chihuahua that she had left behind when she escaped her second-floor apartment.

She told KSAT 12 News off-camera that the dog belonged to her son who has been ill, and that he was coming to reclaim his pet the following day.

As she stood, nervously clenching her hands, a firefighter searched her bedroom.

Others, meanwhile, were making sure other units at the Sedona Apartments were out of the danger zone.

They were called to the complex, in the 4600 block of Thousand Oaks, around 7 a.m. and found fire in at least one second-floor unit.

“It started in the attic, it looked like, above a bathroom,” said Mark Trevino, battalion chief with the San Antonio Fire Department. “So it could have been a bathroom vent or something that overheated.”

Because it involved an apartment complex, the first arriving fire crews called for backup.

Eighteen fire units in all showed up to make sure the problem didn’t get out of control.

More than a dozen units responded to apartment fire on Thousand Oaks. (KSAT 12 News)

“We did manage to get the fire knocked down," Trevino said. “It did spread to two apartments. We had six units affected total, smoke and water damage.”

Firefighters had the electricity shut off to the entire building.

Trevino said the residents would have to be moved to other locations.

Without electricity, they would have no heat during an especially cold day, he said.

In the middle of all that bad news, though, came a bright spot.

The missing Chihuahua suddenly poked its head through the open second-floor window, to the delight of the woman who had been worried about it.

Firefighters were able to reunite both that dog and one other pet with their owners.

“We managed to get them both out. Nobody got hurt,” Trevino said, with a smile on his face.

For those two people, the furry family members represented a little slice of home at a time when they weren’t able to go home.


About the Authors:

Katrina Webber joined KSAT 12 in December 2009. She reports for Good Morning San Antonio. Katrina was born and raised in Queens, NY, but after living in Gulf Coast states for the past decade, she feels right at home in Texas. It's not unusual to find her singing karaoke or leading a song with her church choir when she's not on-air.

Tim has been a photojournalist and video editor at KSAT since 1998. He came to San Antonio from Lubbock, where he worked in TV and earned his bachelor's degree in Electronic Media and Communication from Texas Tech University. Tim has won a handful of awards and has earned a master's in Strategic Communication and Innovation from Tech as well.