SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio firefighters discovered four people inside a home that was leveled after a two-alarm house fire on the Southeast Side.
Joe Arrington, a public information officer with SAFD, confirmed the discovery of the bodies in a Friday briefing.
The identities of the victims have not been released, but Arrington said they may be the family that lived there.
Neighbors say a mother, father, teenage daughter and teenage son lived in the home.
“It’s a very dark day for the fire department here,” Arrington said.
The blaze occurred shortly after 11 a.m. in the 4400 block of Wrangler Run. Though an SAFD station is just over a mile away, Arrington said the fire was already well underway when firefighters arrived.
Officials initially thought a car caught fire in the garage, but Arrington said it was indeed a structure fire.
Arson investigators were also working at the scene, Arrington said.
Michael Lara lives next door and says he was woken by what sounded like an explosion.
"I heard a big shockwave. I mean, it shook the house pretty significantly," he said. “When I went outside, I saw the whole bottom - the lower level was already engulfed in flames. So it was instant.”
His father, Benito, had been sitting in a truck outside and didn’t notice any signs of fire until what he thought was the sound of a falling tree. When he realized it was a fire, he tried to help.
He knocked on the door, but it collapsed inward. The elder Lara said he was “yelling and yelling” for his neighbor but had to pull away from the “”tremendous” heat of the house fire.
The Laras had thought the mother and two teens were in El Paso, with only the father left in town. However, they said no one has been able to get a hold of the family.
The mother and daughter’s cars also appeared to be outside the burnt home, Benito Lara said, but he did not see the company truck the father normally drives.
SAFD said the home was “a total loss,” and the Laras’ home next door appeared to have some superficial damage.
An investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing, and Arrington said it was "too early to even speculate on what that is."