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SAN ANTONIO — Up to 10 people could be displaced after an apartment fire Tuesday morning at a complex in the city's North Side, according to the San Antonio Fire Department.
Firefighters responded to the blaze around 8:45 a.m. in the 700 block of Isom Road, where they found smoke billowing from a second-floor apartment.
Battalion Chief Patrick Zepeda said the blaze began as a grease fire in the kitchen while the sole tenant was cooking. The fire spread to an adjacent unit and one beneath it.
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Firefighters on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017, responded to an apartment fire in the 700 block of Isom Road in the city's North Side. (Caleb Downs, J.M. Scott)
The tenants of the two units on the second floor are definitely displaced, but the tenants of the first floor unit -- five adults and three children -- may not be, Zepeda said. They may face problems from the apartment manager though, he said.
"There might've been too many people living there," he said.
Liliana Balderas, 46, is one of the tenants. Family members at the scene said she was the sole occupant of the apartment, and that she's been plagued by issues since moving in two years ago.
"I've had problems ever since I moved in," she said. Among the problems she cited was water leaking from holes in the bathroom and bedroom walls.
At the scene, she was primarily concerned about some medication for her autistic son that was inside the apartment at the time of the fire, but firefighters were able to retrieve and deliver it to her.
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But now she has to find a place to stay.
"Now we're screwed because we don't have any place to go," she said.
Jose, Balderas' 18-year-old son, said he came to the scene when he heard about the fire. He too is frustrated about the living situation at the apartment, calling it "disgusting" and "uninhabitable," but said the family's plan is to keep moving forward.
"I was talking to my mom, and we didn't have a plan," he said. "This was unexpected. So now the plan is to just make it through the day. That's the plan."
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