Frozen hydrants challenge Texas firefighters in San Antonio area apartment building fire

Firefighters near San Antonio had to haul water Thursday to fight a blaze that devastated a building because hydrants were frozen, a fire chief said.

No one was injured in the blaze, which erupted around 1 p.m. between the floor of an apartment building near TPC Parkway just outside the city, said Bexar Bulverde Volunteer Fire Chief , Jerry Bialick. More than 80 people have been displaced, a spokesperson for the Red Cross said.

When the crews arrived, the fire hydrant in front of the building, and others around it, were inoperable due to freezing weather and harsh winter conditions in San Antonio and the rest of the state.

“Our problem is that we are getting a little ahead and the water is flowing,” Bialick told a press team from NBC WOAI affiliate at the scene.

Bialick said tenders for water – which are trucks that carry water – have been sent from across the region to help. The trucks were carrying between 2,000 and 3,000 gallons of water, he said, but that can be used up in minutes.

Video from the scene showed firefighters using ladder trucks to spray the blaze from above. Pieces of what appeared to be the roof and other sections collapsed.

A cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

The fire chief expected crews to be on the scene overnight. Residents of neighboring buildings have also been urged to leave as a precaution.

A spokesperson for the Red Cross said 32 units were affected and 87 people were displaced. They provided supplies and helped the displaced find shelter.

As a result of the winter storm and freezing temperatures that hit the state, around 4 million customers lost power due to power outages, but residents told WOAI there was electricity in the apartment complex.

As of Thursday evening, the number of customers without power had fallen to about 284,000, according to the poweroutage.us tracking website.

Another freezing night awaited San Antonio, with a low of 21 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

It is not until Saturday that temperatures in San Antonio and other parts of the state are expected to stay above freezing overnight.

There have been at least 37 deaths in eight states in which winter conditions and freezing temperatures have been identified as a factor or cause.

Most of them were in Texas, where 21 people have died, including car crashes and two deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning at a Houston home that used a car to heat itself because it didn’t there was no heat.