CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Tuesday was a busy day for Corpus Christi firefighters as they responded to multiple calls around the city.
The first happening in the morning at Blue Water Drive off Kostoryz Road and Saratoga Boulevard.
The second fire happening just after 2 p.m. at a home on Beard Drive, down the street from Dawson Elementary School.
These fires, thankfully, were not deadly or seriously threatening.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for two elderly residents who died within a week of each other in their own homes in the past 12 days.
Neither of the residents have been identified as of Tuesday.
3NEWS spoke with the neighbors of one of those victims about what can be done to help those who live alone.
On Nov. 21, a 71-year-old woman died when her home burned to the ground in the middle of the night.
A couple of the woman's neighbors shared with 3NEWS about the kind of person she was.
One resident, Britney Gonzalez, has lived in the neighborhood of Morgan Avenue and 11th Street for 15 years. She said she knew the victim of the Nov. 21 fire and would check on her as well as other elderly residents in the neighborhood to see if they needed anything.
"She was real nice," Gonzalez said. "She just always wanted to help people out."
When asked if her neighbor knew about CCFD's free smoke detector program, Gonzalez said her neighbor was very reserved.
"She didn't care about nothing like that," she said. "She never bothered, anybody, didn't want nobody to bother her."
Another neighbor of the unidentified elderly woman, Christina Patton, said older citizens need to know they can get help.
"They don't have to use their stoves and burn their house down," she said. "There are people out there that help them."
Patton said there are too many homes in her neighborhood that don't have smoke detectors.
"There's a lot of houses that don't have insulation, don't have smoke detectors," she said. "I mean, Corpus is pretty not the best at keeping up with houses."
The cause of the fire on 11th Street was electrical and happened in the middle of the night.
CCFD Battalion Chief Tony Perez said the two fatal fires were harder to investigate.
"With these two fires specifically, they're both well involved fires, which is unfortunate, I mean, it was to where the fire was well involved by the time [of] even our arrival," he said. "So we always advocate for smoke alarms, you know, and that's something that it's not just this time of year, throughout the year that we're constantly helping out with installing smoke alarms."
Perez said whenever they get alarms donated, they go door to door to install them for free.
He said anyone who qualifies just needs to remember one phone number.
"You just dial 3-1-1 and they'll ask you a series of questions as far as, you know, get all the information for you and then we'll get that to one of our people on fire prevention to get a call, get it scheduled, based on our availability," Perez said.
The battalion chief added that it is important to never block off doors with furniture, and seniors especially should have an exit plan in the event they smell or see smoke.