SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio firefighters found themselves in a race against nature at the scene of a house fire on the city’s Southwest Side Friday morning.
They found flames burning through the roof of one home in the 1300 block of Schley Avenue when they arrived around 3:30 a.m.
Thanks to nature, the fire was threatening to spread.
“We had about a 20 mile an hour wind coming from the north. It contributed to the build-up of flame,” said Capt. Gabe Ortega with SAFD. “We knew that main house was already gone when we got here, so our main goal was to protect the other houses on either side.”
They had to work quickly to keep that from happening.
Firefighters managed to knock down the fire in about 20 minutes and spared the other homes from damage.
The home where the fire started was destroyed.
Ortega said it was vacant, that the people who lived there most recently had moved out about a week ago or so ago.
“The only people that are actually living there now were living in a detached garage area not tied to the main house,” he said.
The fire, Ortega said, appeared to have started near the kitchen area of the home.
However, he said arson investigators would be working to find out exactly how and where it started.