SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio firefighters are tracking some alarming numbers of structure fires across the city, but most concerning is District 5.
Rachel Delgado remembers waking up on Valentine’s Day morning to warnings of a fire.
“I got a call from a neighbor at 3 in the morning, telling me, ‘Get out of the house. There’s a fire,’” she said.
The fires were across the street in a vacant building and then her neighbor’s home.
Delgado lives in District 5, an area where San Antonio firefighters have been tracking more fires in recent months. Data provided by SAFD shows there were 76 structure fires between October 2021 and March 2022. That number was 46 during the same time frame the previous year.
District 5 Councilwoman Terry Castillo is aware of the trend.
“We’ve learned that roughly 57% of the fires that have occurred within our district have been vacant structures,” she said.
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Castillo said many of the occupied homes where the fires happened did not have smoke detectors.
Rich Johnson with the Insurance Council of Texas said these are factors insurance providers track and consider when adjusting premiums for home and renters insurance customers.
“Maybe, it’s, you know, the structures in a certain area. Maybe it’s not quite up to code. Older areas may have an increased risk of fire as well. And so that may play into how an insurance company may look at that risk and pay a higher rate for that,” Johnson said.
Insurance customers can try to lower their costs by shopping around for better rates, asking what types of programs or packages might be available to lower rates.
Like many of her neighbors, Delgado says she is on a fixed income and can’t afford home or renters insurance.
“I think we’re the poorest district in the city to begin with. So everybody has a low income, and we have a big problem with people that have no place to live,” she said.
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Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.