SAN ANTONIO — Never has Evan Newberry witnessed such destruction as he did Monday after lightning struck a house on San Antonio’s far west side, leading to massive flames and a total loss.
“The whole top of the house was already in flames. There was holes in the roof. It was wild, man,” said neighbor, Evan Newberry.
Bexar County fire crews responded to Sandy White and Gully Hill at the Alamo Ranch community in the hour of 5 p.m.
Newberry had just returned home with his girlfriend when he saw smoke emerging from the house.
“It’s pretty scary,” Newberry said. “Pretty close to home, dude. It’s literally across the street so it could have been my house.”
Newberry said he was the first person to call 911 and report the fire.
It didn’t take long for firefighters to arrive on scene and begin suppressing the blaze.
“They were splashing it,” Newberry said.
Andres Der-Pfundskerl Rodriguez and his husband were watching TV when the storm rolled in. He recalls a bright flash and explosion, followed by the sight of a two-story home engulfed in flames.
They called 911 as well as the fire began to grow.
Meanwhile on the ground, Newberry captured the chaos with his phone.
“They kept shooting it with the water and then it just seemed like the fire would pick back up and then they shot it with just foam and the foam brought it down a little bit, but it just looked like it wasn’t going anywhere, especially in the back of the house,” Newberry said.
No one was home at the time except for a couple of dogs, which got out safely.
Fire officials say lightning is the assumed cause of the Sandy White fire and another house fire off Orange Tree.
As for Newberry, he’s already thinking about how to prepare for the next wave of inclement weather.
“I would say we need to get something on top of the houses to protect it from the rest of us because we all got the same type of roof and I saw it eat through the roofs,” Newberry said.