{"id":431159,"date":"2026-09-10T00:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T00:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431159\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T00:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T00:20:10","slug":"grass-fires-in-castle-hills-believed-to-be-arson-fire-chief-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431159\/","title":{"rendered":"Grass fires in Castle Hills believed to be arson, fire chief says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A recent series of grass fires in Castle Hills appears to be the work of one or more arsonists, according to the city\u2019s fire chief.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Chief Jim Ladewig said there have been four fires along a stretch near Loop 410 and West Avenue in the past month. Two of them happened within an hour of each other late Monday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cThere was (the) appearance that an accelerant was used on one of the fires,\u201d Ladewig said. \u201cAnd then the second fire, there were multiple, at least two or three areas that had been set on fire and were burning at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Ladewig said fortunately fire crews were able to extinguish the flames in all cases before they spread to any buildings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">In some instances, firefighters struggled to gain access to the burning areas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Most were in steep terrain, in heavy brush along railroad tracks or drainage ditches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cWe\u2019re trying to take certain precautions and certain measures to try to get those areas mitigated to where we don\u2019t have the overgrowth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">As of Wednesday morning, investigators had not developed any leads or named any suspects, Ladewig said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The main focus, though, is on finding the person or people responsible for starting the fires before things get too far out of hand, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of a summer. We have the 100-degree temperatures,\u201d Ladewig said. \u201cHopefully the winds don\u2019t start picking up, which causes another problem for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Anyone who notices any suspicious activity or behavior is encouraged to call the Castle Hills Police Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Read also: <\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KSAT &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A recent series of grass fires in Castle Hills appears to be the work of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12183,5757,294,4667,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-431159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-arson","tag-castle-hills","tag-crime","tag-crime-fighters","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}