AUSTIN, Texas — The New Year's holiday is always a busy one for first responders.
Austin fire officials say they responded to hundreds of calls during New Year's celebrations. One of those was a family whose home was destroyed over the weekend.
"The past few days have been very busy for the Austin Fire Department," said Mark Bridges, a shift commander for the department.
Bridges said the fire department was flooded with calls and that several "suspicious" fires are being actively investigated. But some of them were just normal causes.
Sadly, that's what happened to Brandon Williams and his family. Their East Austin home went up in flames due to what AFD said was "improperly discarded smoking material."
"My nephew come back there and say, 'Hey, hey, the house is on fire. The house on fire,'" Williams said. "So I come up here dialing the police at the same time and said the house is on fire."
According to Bridges, the family was lucky enough to escape the house that did not have working smoke detectors.
"They were able to wake up and realize that the house is on fire ... So they were very fortunate," Bridges said.
According to Bridges, Austin fire crews responded to about 400 incidents between Sunday and Monday morning. Dispatchers did their best to take all of the calls with help from Austin police and extra personnel.
Bridges said fireworks going off all across Austin made for an even busier night.
"We had lots of fireworks," Bridges said. "Caused lots of trash fires, lots of dumpster fire, smoke investigations."
As for the Williams family, they say they received some support from the American Red Cross and have had neighbors reach out to help.
"We don't want to keep, like, bouncing around night to night," Williams said. "So we kind of use a voucher they gave us to get an Airbnb."