Fire in San Antonio brings neighborhood to streets

SAN ANTONIO — At 12:14 a.m. Sunday, as Taylor Swift sang Love Story on Saturday Night Live, the residents of San Antonio heard an explosion. "My house shook," said Steve Tillack, who lives on Michigan Avenue. "I thought a tree fell on my house."

Seconds later, people heard sirens and when they looked outside, they saw an orange glow. Many followed it, some still in their pajamas, walking on sidewalks and streets with their children close, the full moon bright, washing people in silver. Students at Saint Leo University, a mile away, felt the explosion in their dorm rooms and drove to find the cause.

The epicenter was 32629 Jesse Jones Ave., a dead-end street just past Magnolia Street, not far from the town’s City Hall, a few shops and a park. The house, nearly all 3,020 square feet of it, was on fire.

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office sectioned off the area, so people couldn’t get close. Fire Rescue had three engines battling the blaze. When Battalion Chief Brian Rieder got on the scene, he pulled his firefighters out of the house. Residents and pets were safe and the house was engulfed. Better to fight it from the outside. Rieder said a young man who rents the house was working on a car in his garage when he smelled smoke and found his house on fire. The chief said the cause of the fire is still under investigation, but that, at this time, it does not seem suspicious. The house is a "total loss," Rieder said. Saint Leo students who drove to the scene said the resident is a college student, but would not identify him.

Small flames poked through the crumbling roof nearly an hour after the explosion — which was likely caused by ammunition stored in the house, Rieder said at 3:30 a.m., after the fire was out and he was back at the station, wide awake, like other residents of the town.

Erin Sullivan, Times staff writer

Comments

[Reality]

There goes the second semester Meth sales.....Glad to hear no one was hurt.