SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio fire crews faced double the danger as they battled a house fire on the city’s West Side early Monday.
The fire broke out after 6:30 a.m. inside what turned out to be an abandoned house in the 1300 block of Culebra Road.
“Given the fact that the fire was actively coming out of the front, it was a well-developed fire when we got here,” said Captain Landon Digby with the San Antonio Fire Department.
Digby said firefighters began to attack the flames as best as they could, but they also had to keep their distance from a power line that was showering down sparks on the scene.
The fire had damaged the line causing part of it to come down.
“It was preventing us from working an entire corner of the building and accessing one side,” he said.
Meanwhile, firefighters were concerned about the fire possibly spreading to another building on that same side.
They had to work feverishly to stop it.
In the end, they managed to conquer the flames with the assistance of water from their truck.
The fire did not damage that other building.
However, when it came to the power line, firefighters had to take a hands-off approach.
Although they had called for help from CPS Energy, the line continued to spark for nearly an hour until it eventually faded out on its own.
“One CPS (Energy) guy that was here handles gas, so he was trying to get ahold of somebody to come out,” Digby said. “But (the line) did eventually just take care of itself.”
There were no injuries reported.
Investigators are trying to determine how the fire started.