A devastating fire in Atascosa County has left residents reeling, with damages estimated at $300,000. Fire Marshal: “Please pray for rain.”
SAN ANTONIO — $300,000. That’s the preliminary damage estimate Atascosa County officials have released on the Way Cross Road fire that burned houses, vehicles, trailers and brush land near the Bexar County line Thursday afternoon.
And if the first fire wasn’t scary enough, neighbors found the fire had a small flare up again Friday morning, causing them to grab garden hoses and call for help again.
Sylvia Martinez, who lives immediately next door to the fire zone said she was scared when she was cooking breakfast and saw fire again.
Martinez said “I happened to look out and I see flames again and I say here we go again!”
The family called 911 and grabbed garden hoses.
“Because who knows! This thing went up quickly yesterday so who’s to say how quickly this can spread. My neighbors lost their homes,” Martinez said, adding “Luckily they’re alive but they lost everything, you know, whatever they had!”
Martinez said she and others are on guard.
“Yes, it’s like PTSD, you know, I didn’t sleep all night just making sure that everything was OK. My home smells like smoke and it was just it was scary!” Martinez said, adding that her son was evaluated for smoke inhalation but he was okay.
Martinez, who said she keeps her homestead neat and tidy, said the fire was a wakeup call about the conditions on neighboring parcels.
“It’s scary because you don’t know exactly what they have. All we heard was lots of booming yesterday, lots of explosions,” Martinez said, adding “We didn’t know what it was, if it was propane tanks or what it was that was causing all the explosions.”
“We try to maintain a clean property and not have a lot of brush or debris and that sort of thing because out here, with this drought, it’s just hard!” Martinez said, adding “Everything goes and you lose acreage quickly.”
Neighbor Shauna Matthews, who helped neighbors and pets evacuate, said she believes their efforts saved all the dogs in the fire zone except one.
“It was really bad. It was horrifying. Like it just like went in flames, not even like three minutes. It was all in flames!” Matthews said, adding one bed-ridden woman was rescued by neighbors who raced to save her.
“They got her out in pretty much seconds. She’s lucky to be alive. Her home is gone and everything is gone. She lost everything,” Matthews said, agreeing that keeping rural properties in clean, good order is essential.
“We even looked out back here and we didn’t even know all this stuff was back here,” Matthews said, adding “So for people, like for the future, just make sure you know what’s in the back of your neighbor’s house or like in the property so that this doesn’t happen to y’all.”
Overlooking acres of blackened rubbish that included old tires, junk vehicles and lots of excessive fuel load, Matthews said “Why do you need all this stuff? What are you going to use five ovens or stoves for, you know?”
Matthews said acting now is smarter than reacting during an emergency. “It’s just scary because this can happen in a heartbeat. One moment you have everything and then like in a minute you have nothing,” Matthews said.
Martinez said she and others remain grateful for the efforts of the volunteer fire departments that serve the area.
“We want to give a big shout out to them because those guys work hard and they’re tired. My daughter went out and brought all these Gatorades up and down the road,” Martinez said.
County officials said two firefighters were evaluated for heat-related issues and about seven acres burned. Atascosa County Fire Marshal Roland Sanchez provided a text update Friday afternoon that reads “Please pray for rain.”