San Angelo Woman Loses Cats to Structure Fire

A San Angelo woman is recovering this evening after her home in the 2000 block of Juanita caught on fire. Karla Steppe, investigator with the San Angelo Fire Marshal’s Office, said although the woman suffered no injuries, three of her cats perished in the fire.

“[The woman] said one of the cats was 18 years old,” Steppe said. “That was a pretty hard loss.”

Steppe said San Angelo firefighters responded to the structure fire just before 4 p.m. The structure included a single-family residence owned by the woman who resides there with her 10 cats.

“She smelled smoke and went to investigate,” Steppe said. “She saw the smoke was coming from behind the bookcase in the spare bedroom, and then she saw the fire.”

Steppe said the woman tried to put the fire out herself with water, but that didn’t work. So she went to her neighbor’s house and asked them to call 9-1-1.

Steppe added that it took firefighters a while to get the fire under control, and they did identify the source of the blaze.

“During the investigation, I found a power tap, which is different than a surge protector,” stated Steppe. “If a power tap is overloaded, it doesn’t automatically turn off. This power tap overheated and it caused the fire.”

The woman told Steppe she had a fan going into the power tap. Steppe explained that a power tap looks a lot like a surge protector with the six receptacles, and it has a switch to turn it off and on, but if it has too much power and overheats, it doesn’t “trip off.” A surge protector, however, is like a breaker in the home. If it overheats, it trips and turns off.

Steppe said the fire caused damage to the wall. It burned through the panel in that room, close to the base board. Luckily, the house isn’t a total loss structurally. About 90 percent of it is sound, but there is a small area that needs to be replaced.

“There is a lot of fire damage in that room, in the little hallway, and also to the doors and some of the trim around that area around the windows, but we did have heat and smoke damage throughout,” explained Steppe.

She also said the owner is going to have to totally gut the house to get the smoke smell out. However, the owner doesn’t have homeowner’s insurance, so there is an issue with financial resources. Red Cross did respond to the call, and Steppe said officials were very kind.

“They did provide [the woman] some assistance,” Steppe noted. Also, the woman’s family will provide some assistance.

Steppe mentioned that the woman didn’t have any smoke detectors in the house, which is very important for homeowners.

She said, “Had she had one, she would have had earlier notification.”