South Bexar County residents seek emergency shelter as wildfires threaten their homes

Ana Ortiz arrived at Mission Espada on Tuesday evening at a loss for words.

She had her three family dogs and four daughters, two of whom have asthma, sought safety at the Red Cross emergency shelter amid the rapidly spreading wildfires.

Ortiz said she was sent to the shelter because of smoke by Bexar County Sheriff’s Office deputies who blocked off roads near her home.

She was heading to her daughter’s pickup line at school when she got a call from her neighbor, alerting her that there was a fire nearby.

About 30 minutes later, she arrived at her home and saw the magnitude of the situation. Closed roads, smoke so thick it’s hard to breathe and numerous fire trucks.

“They all had surprised faces, watching on,” she said of her neighbors, in Spanish, who stayed behind to defend their homes near Big Leaf and Old Pleasanton roads.

She took officers’ advice, grabbed the most important documents, and left with her family, suggesting her neighbors to do the same.

“It’s bittersweet that we’re fine, but I don’t have family here. I don’t know if I’ll have a home or where to go,” she said.

The temporary shelter at the Mission Espada Fellowship Hall on 10040 Espada Road was set up by the city and Red Cross on Tuesday to receive evacuees from the Calaveras Fire that erupted south of U.S. Highway 181.

Winds of 25 to 35 mph, with gusts reaching up to 75 mph in parts of southern Bexar County, facilitated the spread of the fire, according to officials.

The shelter will remain open as long as needed, said Mac Frank McNell, regional mass care volunteer with the Red Cross.

Enough water bottles and snacks will be provided for as many as 250 people. The Red Cross will coordinate further with local restaurants or H-E-B to provide dinners should the need arise, he continued.

“We’re ready to go … sitting here ready to go,” McNell said around 4 p.m.. “I’ve got a truck coming with water, snacks, things like that.”

Another nearby fire pushed resident Elyssa Worth, 54, from her home by Old Corpus Christi Road.

She said she woke up to shouts from San Antonio Fire Department telling residents to get out. She could see where SAFD was setting up a debris barricade against the fire.

“I don’t know what I’m going to get home to,” she said.

Relying on a walker and unable to get her medication nor glasses, she drove to the shelter at Mission Espada.

“I have major breathing problems anyway, so I knew to get out of there,” Worth said.