SAN ANTONIO – It almost seemed like a bad dream, except Chris Sanchez actually had just woken up to a commotion outside his apartment window.
“I was just laying down and all of a sudden I heard an explosion. At first I thought it was a gunshot,” he said.
RELATED: Families escape, cat dies, during North Side apartment fire
As it turned out, Sanchez was hearing the sounds from a fire that was beginning to swallow up the apartment building across from his at the Mediterranean Villas.
San Antonio firefighters were called to respond to the apartment complex, located in the 1500 block of Jackson-Keller, shortly before midnight.
“It was bad. I mean like, you could literally see, like, open flames in that whole room right there,” Sanchez said, pointing to burned out building hours later.
He said it took only minutes for fire crews to arrive.
Once there, he said, they were able to focus right in on the fire.
Sanchez said the people in the building already had taken care of themselves.
“There were other people trying to alert other people in the building too, to try to get them to evacuate,” he said.
Firefighters say all 15 people in the apartment building were able to escape safely.
They believe it started in a second floor unit, and left seven of the eight apartments with damage either from the fire, smoke or water.
A woman who told KSAT 12 News the fire started in her home says her family’ pet, a cat, did not make it out alive.
She said she woke up to the smell of smoke because her smoke detectors never went off.
Other neighbors, however, said they got out of bed after hearing their smoke detectors beeping.
Volunteer with the American Red Cross showed up at the scene and offered help to the displaced families.
Firefighters say it may be some time before anyone can return to the apartments.
As of late Wednesday morning, fire investigators still had not determined the cause of the fire.