ATASCOSA COUNTY, Texas — The investigation is heating up Monday after a massive fire in Atascosa County Saturday.
While a large collection of tires burned, witnesses reported seeing the smoke plume rising from more than fifty miles away.
The fire consumed much of a six-acre family compound on Verdi Road just west of I-37 near FM 3006.
Property owner Lupe Gonzales says the parcel was home to 16 of her family members, who all lost almost everything they own.
Gonzales said her home and two large RVs burned into nothing but ash and a bit of twisted metal.
Another home, Gonzales says, has been called unsafe because fire ate through portions of the floor and the interior of the structure is saturated with the remains of thick smoke.
With regard to how the fire started, several family members say they had been barbequing, but the fire was not left unattended and they were shocked at how fast the fire spread in spite of their initial efforts to contain it.
Gonzales said her family has been providing a service to a large area of south Texas, storing used tires.
“There are a lot of people involved in this thing. We have tires from commissioners, from constables, from all around Atascosa County and more,” Gonzales said, citing the communities of Floresville, Pleasanton, Jourdanton, Charlotte, Poteet, Devine, Pearsall and Dilley.
“Everybody is blaming me but they all knew I had the tires here,” Gonzales said.
Both the Atascosa County Fire Marshal and inspectors from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have been on the property many times, according to Gonzales.
“Everybody around here is blaming me for this and mostly the big mans (sic) knew about it,” Gonzales claimed.
The 62-year old mother and grandmother says the family started accepting payments to store the tires to sustain the group during hard times. She says when the pandemic hit, most of the family workers lost their jobs and then eight family members contracted the COVID virus.
“Nobody cared about us while we were here with COVID. Nobody brought us even a piece of bread here. We had no jobs, no food, bills to pay and nobody cared about us,” Gonzales said.
She added that while everyone continues to recover, the money they took in from tire storage allowed them to put food on the table. Stifling tears, Gonzales said she isn’t sure what the family will do next.
“I just don’t know, I lost everything,” Gonzales said, adding that she is grateful that everyone escaped uninjured.
Gonzales expressed deep gratitude for the first responders who came from far and wide to help contain the fire. She said a fire commander gave her a choice about saving her own home, explaining that they would try if she asked them to, but it would put first responders at risk. Gonzales says she told the firefighters to let the house burn in the interest of keeping firefighters safe.
Talking about the recovery process, Gonzales said they hope to find at least two low cost recreational vehicles to move to the site while they begin the cleanup process.
She says reading mean-spirited social media posts about her family’s plight has been almost as hard as what was lost to the fire.
“We’re the kind of people that if someone needs help, we pitch in and help but when it comes to us, we don’t have no help,” Gonzales said.
“People talk without knowing us and they are saying a lot of things without knowing what we have gone through,” Gonzales added.
Picking through the one smoke-choked house that remained standing, family members tried to see if any personal items could be salvaged Monday.
At least two San Antonio groups have offered to give the family clothing and food, but Gonzales says since they have no place to stay or store materials, they will have to wait until they find shelter before they can accept help.
Atascosa County Fire Marshal Roger Garcia says they will continue to monitor the fire scene to make sure hot spots don’t re-ignite. Even though a number of fire companies from the area were able to stop the fire from spreading, the parcel is still home to hundreds of tires, so the danger of a re-kindle is something Garcia plans to guard against.
TCEQ provided the following background on the history of their involvement with the site, and the outlook for the future.
“On Saturday, March 6, 2021, The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) was notified through a concerned citizen that there was an active tire fire on Verdi Rd., Atascosa County. Contact was established with the Atascosa County Fire Marshal, who was able to confirm that a tire storage site was on fire. TCEQ emergency response personnel responded to the active fire and utilized air monitors to conduct air monitoring down wind of the immediately impacted area. TCEQ San Antonio Region staff are continuing to monitor the site.
As background, on February 3, 2020, environmental investigators with the TCEQ Region-13 San Antonio Office, conducted a complaint investigation at a property located at 45 Arguijo Ln. (3365 Verdi Rd.), Pleasanton, Atascosa County, at the request of the Atascosa County Fire Marshal’s Office. During the investigation, it was noted that approximately 9,800 scrap tires were being stored, processed, and disposed of on the property. The property owner was cited for unauthorized waste management activities, 30 Tex. Admin. Code Sections 330.15(a) & (c). A report was completed and the site was referred for formal enforcement on May 22, 2020. In September 2020, a proposed agreed order (Docket No. 2020-0755-MSW-E) was proposed and sent to the property owner/respondents. The order requires the respondents to immediately cease accepting, storing, and processing scrap tires at the site and to remove them for disposal to an authorized facility. Because settlement was not achieved during the standard 60-day settlement process, the case was referred to the TCEQ’s Litigation Division on December 3, 2020, so that an Executive Director’s Preliminary Report and Petition could be filed which would allow for the opportunity for a contested case hearing in the matter. This matter is under development.”