San Marcos family loses newly renovated home in fire
SAN MARCOS, Texas - Memories turned into ash and rubble at the San Marcos home of the Rodriguez family Friday morning.
The family planned to move into the home this previous weekend; instead they lost thousands of dollars in renovations along with childhood memories and all of their belongings.
"I couldn’t look, my wife is crying, screaming, she’s like ‘this is all we have’. This is her family home, her mother and dad‘s house and they grew up in this house," said Rene Rodriguez.
The home on Aspen Street went up in flames in the early hours of Aug. 18.
"Well, we got a call at 3, 3:15,3:20 in the morning saying that our house is on fire on the inside, from my sister-in-law and I said, ‘what do you mean it’s on fire’ I said ‘the house shouldn’t be on fire’, you know, so we got here and the house, it was in flames", says Rene Rodriguez.
There was no one in the home at the time of the fire, which resulted in the roof collapsing above two of the bedrooms.
"If my little brother, if he was sleeping in that room, he probably would’ve died because the whole roof fell right there," said Michael Rodriguez.
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"Everything that we own, everything that we had, all their school clothes everything, just gone," said Rene Rodriguez.
"They were working so hard, and this is my mom’s childhood home," said Michael Rodriguez.
Nearly $10,000 in renovations had just been completed on the family home, which had been vacant for the past four years. The cause of the fire is under investigation, but Rene Rodriguez believes an electrical problem sparked it.
"The main line that comes from the meter to go into the house is what started the fire, it started the fire because they said it was rubbing right here, in the corner and that’s what started it up there inside the attic," said Rene Rodriguez.
Rodriguez says it took nearly three hours for firefighters to put out the flames, and the home now will have to be torn down and rebuilt.
"We don’t know where to go, because we did not expect this in a million years you know with that, we’re gonna come in here and moving here and we are happy family again and it’s devastating," said Rene Rodriguez.
The Rodriguez family has a GoFundMe set up for donations; click here to donate.