SAN ANTONIO – Lightning is being blamed for a fire Tuesday morning on the city's Northwest Side that destroyed a garage and damaged a home.
According to San Antonio firefighters, neighbors knocked on the door of the burning home in the 3400 block of Northmoor around 6 a.m. to alert the homeowners to trouble.
"The neighbors heard a lightning strike and got up to check it out and saw that their neighbor's house was on fire," said San Antonio Fire Department battalion Chief Patrick Zepeda.
Zepeda said the couple had already been awakened by smoke detectors. They got out of the home safely while firefighters attacked flames shooting from the roof of the garage.
"We could see the sparks going everywhere," said Harvey Joe Anderson, who lives in the home. "So it was in full bloom."
Anderson stood by and watched as firefighters struggled to keep the flames from spreading from the garage to her home. Although the garage was destroyed, firefighters kept damage to the home to a minimum.
"It did get into the structure just above a breakfast nook, about 8 feet, but it was a pretty good fire stop," Zepeda said.
No one was hurt in the fire.
Anderson said that while she is grateful that there were no injuries, she fears that she might have lost decades of memories -- Christmas decorations that she stored in the attic space just above her garage.
"I have about 20 bins," she said. "That's my favorite time, and so I have a lot of Santas. I'm hoping that my new nativity did not get broken and burned."
Firefighters estimated the damage to the home, garage and their contents at about $45,000.