AUSTIN (KXAN) — Several apartment buildings in east Austin are now unlivable after a fire spread from a barbecue pit into the buildings, the Austin Fire Department said. The fire happened around 3 p.m. Saturday at the 6800 block of Wentworth Drive. That’s off Loyola Lane.
“There was a guy BBQing on the backside of the road, the wind blew, it made the building catch fire and then the fire started spreading building to building,” said Shermanique Collins. Her grandparents live at the complex.
Collins’ grandparents are okay, but 32 of their neighbors have been displaced by the fire. Many are staying nearby at the Turner Roberts Recreation Center where the Red Cross is set up.
“Generally we’ll open a shelter like this, we’ll feed, we’ll provide some items — usually in partnership with other organizations — and the case work piece usually comes in. Those are kind of our standard programs that we offer for these type of events,” said Kristofer Morgan, senior community disaster program manager at the American Red Cross.
This type of response would be expanded or replicated in the city of Austin should there be a catastrophic wildfire. That’s something Austin Mayor Kirk Watson nodded to in an interview several weeks ago.
“What we would do under these circumstances of course is first we would hope that we could help place people with their family or friends. We also would open up other facilities much the way we do when we have a very cold night and things of that nature. We would first look to other facilities like libraries and rec-centers,” he explained.
That requires collaboration between organizations like the American Red Cross and the city before a fire — something that was in place over the weekend.
“Saturday evening when we had to open a shelter, 8:00, 9:00 at night, we were able to call up our partners at PARD (Austin Parks and Recreation Department) and they said, ‘yes come on down,'” Morgan said.
Morgan and her family hope with fire danger being top of mind right now, that people will use extra caution so it’s not necessary moving forward.
“Don’t be cooking six feet within building space, there’s a reason why that’s code and law, for other people’s safety. And then if you see that you start a fire especially if it’s not intentional, make sure everybody that could have possible been affected is okay,” she said.
The American Red Cross is regularly looking for volunteers. You can find ways to help here.
