Saving lives and property in San Antonio? There’s an app for that.

SAN ANTONIO — The calm in the 600 block of Channing Avenue in the Highland Park area was shattered when a house undergoing repair from a previous fire was the scene of a destructive blaze again.

Cell phone video shot by a neighbor shows a house in full bloom, with flames eating through the roof across the length of the home.

The neighbors started calling for help around 6:30p.m. on Sunday.  

The flames were so intense the first two fire companies immediately started dumping water on the house to protect two nearby homes.

“Engine 9 and Engine 29 did a really good job because they had a super quick knock down on this fire,” Battalion Chief Brandon Murray said, adding that those who were next to arrive worked on establishing water supply lines.

Murray said he knew they were in for a fight when he was driving toward the scene and he received a video feed on the Good Sam app.

The service, which has been used by the City of San Antonio for several years, allows anyone who chooses to share what they can see with the camera in their phone to instantly connect with the first responders who are trying to help.

Murray said “We can use this in fires. We can use this in car wrecks. We can use it for CPR. We can use it on any run that someone on scene will allow us to get into their camera and view what their camera is seeing.”

Getting more information, faster, helps plan a more effective response, Murray said.

“What that does is it allows me to get a plan done earlier. It allows me to make assignments to my crews earlier because we already see what is happening,” Murray said, adding “Without the Good Sam app, you wait until you get on scene and the first crews give a report, but with the Good Sam app we get to see it during our drives, so we’re already getting stuff done prior to getting there.”

Murray said the app can be a life saver when someone is experiencing a medical emergency.

“We’ve shown people how to do CPR. We’ve shown that when they are doing CPR, maybe they are not doing it correctly. You gotta push deeper. You have to do it more on the right spot on their chest,” Murray said. 

Murray said dispatchers with specialty training are able to help victims survive until medical personnel arrive.

“We have dedicated dispatchers. They are called clinical dispatchers that sit down and use this app for all of our medical runs,” Murray said, adding “You can’t see the dispatcher but the dispatcher can see you and see what’s going on. It’s just a very helpful tool.”

With regard to the fire on Channing, neighbors told firefighters that the home has been in the process of an extensive renovation effort after a previous fire within the past year.

Murray said because the walls were bare framing studs with insulation and no sheetrock, when the flames got started, the entire structure went up fast. 

In fact, the flames were so high and so intense, Murray said some callers claimed that more than one house was ablaze.

Investigators were called to look for a cause, but Murray said it appears to be accidental in nature, perhaps caused by some activity related to the ongoing work on the building.

Murray called the home a total loss, as the back wall was destroyed, the roof was mostly gone and the rest was gutted from back to front.

“Really, the only thing here is about three walls,” Murray said, adding that inspectors from code compliance would be making a ruling about whether the structure is a candidate for emergency demolition.

Several neighbors said they saw workers in the home throughout the day on Sunday.  

While firefighters were busy trying to protect two homes on either side, the home to the west sustained some damage, with broken windows and singed fascia boards on the eaves. Plastic body parts on a car parked in the driveway were partially melted and the city issued trash cart was a withered shell.   

Murray said there were no injuries during the effort.

The Good Sam website includes a video clip with a more extensive explanation for how the service is used in San Antonio, click here to see it.

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