A fire ignited in Comfort during the very early hours Sunday that took down Fati’s Café and roughly 10 units at Comfort Hatchery Apartments on Business Highway 87.
While it remains unclear as of The Star’s Tuesday press deadline what caused the fire to ignite at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, Kendall County Emergency Management Coordinator Jeff Fincke said a preliminary investigation suggests the blaze started in a barn or storage facility behind the café, 7 Business Highway 87, which was formally known as Manny’s Café and once housed The Cocky Rooster Bar.
Seven fire departments – Sisterdale, Comfort, Waring, Boerne, Kerrville, Center Point and Turtle Creek – and the Kendall County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Department of Transportation responded to the fire. Further, Sisterdale Volunteer Fire Department Chief Brian Reilly said Kendall County Emergency Management Services and the Comfort Water District played critical roles in getting the fire under control.
While initial reports indicated residents of the Hatchery Apartments were entrapped, no injuries were reported other than a minor foot injury suffered by a firefighter. All residents were accounted for when first responders arrived. However, a search was conducted of the residents as an extra precaution.
“It’s one of those better safe-than-sorry things,” said Reilly, who was assigned first command on the scene. “You know, there’s a lot of confusion and people running around, and it’s hard to account for residents. So, when there was still some concern there might been someone in the Building 6 (apartments) there, then the Boerne captain took his crew in there and searched and made sure no one was in there. And they weren’t.”
During the Kendall County Commissioners Court meeting Monday, Fincke said at one time there were about 18 fire apparatus on the scene and 70 firefighters working the fire. Roads around the site were closed to traffic for several hours into Sunday afternoon while firefighters were battling the blaze and later working the hotspots and cleanup.
While the café appeared to take the brunt of the impact, with officials expecting the restaurant to be deemed a total loss, Fincke said about eight or nine rental units of the apartment complexes were damaged, leaving about 14 people displaced. However, Reilly said it was initially difficult to gauge whether some areas were living quarters because of the severity of the damage caused by the fire.
“It was a pretty big effort,” Reilly said. “There were a lot of trucks, and the units from Kerr County definitely were instrumental in helping put that out. It was a lot of volume of burning stuff, so it took a lot of manpower to try to wrangle it.”
First responders continued into late morning dousing any hotspots and investigating the cause of the fire, but a widespread community effort ensure those displaced and impacted by it had roofs over their head, meals and clothes on their back.
Comfort’s Immanuel Lutheran Church provided coffee and a meal for first responders working the fire for long hours in its most critical time between 2:30 and 8:30 a.m. Sunday and those who were forced to evacuate their homes. Further, the Lutheran church provided breakfast for everyone.
According to a representative from the church, all residents displaced from their home found shelter either with family, a local bed and breakfast or a hotel in town. Further, the church worked with the Pass It On resale shop in Comfort to ensure those who lost their homes and personal belongings had clothes to see them through.
The Lutheran church also is working with the Comfort Table & Food Pantry to ensure the residents displaced by the fire continue to be fed, and the church is putting together a discretionary funds for those impacted.
Anyone interested in contributing monetary donations may call Immanuel Lutheran Church at 830-995-3756.
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