Low water pressure affecting firefighters' efforts to put out fires

"Sweetie" is a very scared but a very lucky dog. Somehow she got out when the fire swept through the Garza family home on Ilex on the southeast side.

"I don't know. I was at work at the time. Sweetie was in the house. I had another that didn't come out," said Binny Garza.

Firefighters believe a space heater started the fire that damaged three structures here. It took 12 fire trucks and all the firefighters that go along with them to beat down the flames. They could've used a little more water pressure to go along with the extra manpower.

"It was a little low. We got notified by the water department that the water system across the city is down due to all the water breaks. I called early to try to boost the pressure and they gave us everything they could," said District Chief Jimmy Campbell.

This was the second major house fire of the day. The other was less than two hours earlier on the Near Northside

"All you could hear was pops and booms. Literally that's all we heard. Pops and booms," said neighbor Veronica Cruz.

Firefighters ran into the same pressure problem. Fire damaged four homes. HFD Chief Sam Pena admitted this situation is less than ideal.

"No, no. We need to get the resources and the extinguishing agent on the fire to control it," he said.

So far the nobody has been hurt, but another dog in the Garza family named "Little" couldn't make it out alive.

FOX 26 made several attempts to reach Public Works about how long the low pressure situation is expected to persist. We are waiting to hear back.