SAN ANTONIO — Six trash bags lay in a hotel room; one has been torn into while the others remain untouched.
They are what's left of Erica Ferguson's belongings after her apartment was destroyed in a fire this week. The mother said her children's things were also destroyed.
“I’m scared to open all my stuff. I think that’s when it will finally hit me that everything’s gone," Ferguson said.
Ferguson said she was studying at home. It was around 3 in the morning when her dog, Snowball, began barking.
“I finally got up to see what was going on and I smelled smoke," Ferguson said.
She said she knocked on her neighbors' doors to let them know, but by the time she walked out to get a better look, her building was already in flames.
“I immediately just ran out to my sister’s and got her and her kids out as well as everyone in the building."
Officials with the San Antonio Fire Department said the fire began at the Cottages in Terrell Hills in one unit and quickly spread to the attic. Eventually, it caused one of the buildings to collapse, leaving 18 people without homes, including four children.
No injuries were reported.
SAFD said the fire was suspicious in nature. Bren Garza, 39, has been charged with arson in connection to the incident.
Ferguson said he'd been a problem since Garza moved in several months ago.
"He did not let nobody know that there was a fire," Ferguson said. "So his intent when he walked down the stairs was to let everybody burn.”
Ferguson described the community at the complex as close-knit. She said she had a relationship with many of her neighbors. She said just a few days before the fire, one of her neighbors came over with watermelon to share with Ferguson's family.
Connections like these, she says, will be difficult to find again.
“My sister, she worked outside. My neighbors, they worked for everything they have. Everybody put their effort in for their homes for it to be all gone," Ferguson said.
The mother went on to say she is grateful she was awake when her dog started barking. She said she has a place to stay until August; the Salvation Army has also stepped into help. Despite this, she said it's not her home.
“It's not where my plants are set up," Ferguson said "It’s not the memories I put in there. All of that’s gone.”
Garza is being held on a $90,000 bond.