SAN ANTONIO – Workers with the San Antonio Water System began testing fire hydrants Monday morning in the East Side neighborhood where firefighters had struggled to put out a house fire hours earlier.
The SAWS crew members could be seen driving around in the area near Wyoming and Toledo streets around 8 a.m., occasionally stopping to test the flow of water from the nearby hydrants.
RELATED: Firefighters battle flames, deal with low water pressure at East Side house fire
That is the same area where fire had destroyed a vacant house around 5 a.m.
San Antonio firefighters who were called to the 200 block of Toledo found flames shooting from the roof and windows of single-story home that they said was supposed to be vacant.
They said they quickly began trying to hook up their hoses to nearby fire hydrants, only to find out they were not up to the job.
“We had some water issues, low water pressure,” said Battalion Chief John Castillo with SAFD. “So we had some difficulty getting a strong water supply.”
Castillo said the low pressure they were receiving made it difficult for crews to tap into the hydrants with all the hoses they needed to fight the fire.
Instead, they had to rely on fire trucks with their own water supply.
He said they did manage to hook up just one truck, their aerial ladder truck, to a hydrant and use it.
“Once we were able to establish that aerial line, that helped us bring the fire under control,” Castillo said.
It took close to an hour for them to extinguish all the flames.
No one was hurt, and firefighters did not find anyone inside the home.
Castillo said it had no working utilities and had not had any legal tenants since 2022.
“We do know that our fire investigators determined that there was some homeless activity inside,” he said.
Investigators, however, did not find the exact cause of the fire right away.
KSAT 12 News emailed a spokesperson for SAWS regarding the problem with the fire hydrants.
As of late Monday morning, she said she was still working to find answers to the questions that were asked.
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