SAN ANTONIO – A demolition crew apparently sparked a fire at a construction site outside University Hospital early Monday morning, according to fire investigators.
The fire broke out around 5:30 a.m. in a fenced-off area just steps away from the hospital’s doors.
Firefighters respond to fire at construction site near University Hospital
“When we arrived, we could see an active fire,” said Woody Woodward, a public information officer for the San Antonio Fire Department. “We did call for a second alarm, obviously, because of the size of the structure.”
At one point, more than two dozen fire units lined the street in the 4500 block of Medical Drive.
Once firefighters were able to begin to knock down the flames, they released about half of the backup fire crews and put them back into service.
They were able to contain the fire strictly to the area where it started.
Woodward said it broke out in what once had been a skywalk but now is unattached from the hospital building.
He said that structure was undergoing demolition at the time.
“What happened is some of the construction workers this morning, as they were doing their demo work, accidentally sparked that fire, possibly with a cutting torch,“ he said.
Still, Woodward said, it was scary for a while, even for the firefighters.
They worried about what might’ve happened had the fire gotten out of control.
“We did go all the way into the hospital, up several floors, to make sure there was no extension into the main hospital building,” Woodward said.
Elizabeth Allen, a spokeswoman for University Hospital, confirmed that it was a “small fire” that did not affect business at the hospital. She said there were no evacuations and no injuries.
Because the walkway that burned was in the process of being torn down, there was no real damage done by the fire, Woodward said.