SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio firefighters battled an apartment fire Wednesday afternoon on the city's Southeast Side.
Officials at the scene said that a car in the parking lot of an apartment complex caught on fire, which spread to a storage area and then to an apartment building. The fire department said ammunition went off in the car, slowing down the firefighting process.
The fire was reported at the Pecan Valley Apartments in the 4500 block of Pecan Valley Drive.
Neighbors tried to put out the fire when they heard the ammunition exploding.
“I ran to break another fire extinguisher open, and we used like four or five of them. But they only had like a little bit in there,” Amanda Ponce said. “So we started hearing popping popping and it wasn't going out so we just stepped away.
The fire spread to the common attic space inside the building, damaging eight apartments, seven of which were occupied.
“It's just not the apartment,” Paula Taylor said. “It's everything I own. Everything I had, it's gone.”
Taylor is staying with her daughter. But she and her neighbors are wondering what to do next.
The fire department was still determining the how much damage the fire caused and what started the car fire.
The Red Cross was at the scene helping people who were displaced. The property manager said displaced residents would be moved to other units.
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