Fire officials said a vacant house fire in a west-side neighborhood destroyed two homes and damaged a third.
SAN ANTONIO — Family members say when a security camera woke Priscilla up in her 1930s home on El Paso Street on Monday, she felt hot.
When she looked at the video feed, horrified, she knew why.
The house next door, which was just a few feet away, was a blistering inferno.
Priscilla and her dad, Joe, escaped from the home with the clothes they were wearing as the hungry fire ate through the attic of the modest home and caused enough structural damage that the building is a total loss.
Several neighbors called for help just after 5 a.m. and one even took out a garden hose and tried to keep the flames from spreading. But when the fight was over, fire officials say two homes were lost and a third sustained damage.
“When we got here the main structure was fully involved,” said SAFD Battalion Chief Edward Rohmer.
Rohmer said the house, listed on the tax roll as being about 500-square-feet in size, was vacant and under renovation and did not have utility service.
Within minutes, Rohmer said, the original house collapsed as the fire jumped to the house next door.
“The two people that were living in that house did get out safely,” Rohmer said, adding that the house on the opposite side sustained damage as well.
Rohmer said neighbors reported a constant threat in the area.
“We got reports of a lot of homeless in and out of it starting fires all the time,” Rohmer said.
The sister of the man who lost everything said that her brother was a hard working family man who had lived in the home 27 years.
“He said ‘I didn’t have much but this is what I worked for. This was my home, our home,'” she said, adding that the home, like many in the old neighborhood, is not insured.
In addition to the home, the family also lost a car that was in the driveway when part of the house next door collapsed onto it.
As for a cause, Rohmer said fire investigators are looking into the matter but with the level of damage, it might be hard to establish.
Family members said they were told from the start that the city will probably issue an emergency demolition order for the unstable structure, so there’s an aggressive effort to retrieve any family memories that might be salvageable.
A GoFundMe effort has been launched by the family.