• BY ALLISON MILES - AMILES@VICAD.COM
• Originally published February 3, 2010 at 8:27 p.m., updated February 4, 2010 at 9:34 a.m.

• A busy day

  Victoria firefighters responded to two other fires Wednesday:

  The first call came in at 8:26 a.m. for an apartment at 3210A Oaklawn St., Martin said. Tenants Lupe Garza and David Garza were not there at the time. ...

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A busy day

Victoria firefighters responded to two other fires Wednesday:

The first call came in at 8:26 a.m. for an apartment at 3210A Oaklawn St., Martin said. Tenants Lupe Garza and David Garza were not there at the time. They had been staying in a motel until the electricity could be turned on at the apartment.

About 12:30 p.m., crews arrived at apartments owned by the Victoria Advocate at 101 N. De Leon St., where a towel atop a gas heater caught fire, officials said.

How to help

For information on how to donate items to those affected by Wednesday's fires, call the American Red Cross Crossroads chapter at 361-573-2671.

Edward Flickinger stood behind a yellow police line, his eyes fixed on the smoke wafting the front of his house.

Flickinger's home in the 2700 block of Leary Lane caught fire Wednesday morning while he was out running errands. He was only gone for a half hour or 45 minutes, he said.

"I don't know what happened," the retired research biologist said with a slight shake of his head. "I don't know what could have started it."

The emergency call came in at 9:07 a.m. and, when firefighters arrived at the scene, they found heavy smoke coming from the front of the off-white home with blue shutters, said Shannon Martin, battalion chief with the Victoria Fire Department.

Firefighters entered the home and got the fire under control within about 20 minutes, he said. The blaze, which started after the homeowner left a running space heater too close to the bed, caused extensive damage throughout the mobile home, Martin said.

Smoke continued flowing from the home at 10 a.m. as crews cleaned the mess caused by the fire and by extinguishing it.

Curious neighbors dotted the street as the events progressed. A toddler about a block away from the burning home pressed his nose against a window as he looked out at the flashing lights and uniformed firefighters.

Flickinger said his first thought when he received the call that his house was on fire was that they had the wrong person. He'd lived in the same place since 1987 and said nothing like that had ever happened.

"I don't know if there's anything left in there," he said, raising his hood as the rain picked up. "Just about everything I own is in there."

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