BEXAR COUNTY, Texas – An evacuation warning for the Calaveras Fire on Tuesday spread further than emergency officials intended.
In the face of the low humidity, high winds, a lack of air support and quickly moving flames on Tuesday, the Bexar County Office of Emergency Management issued a notice for people nearby the brush fire in southeast Bexar County to evacuate.
Though the evacuation message was supposed to be aimed at people within a specific, geofenced area, BCOEM Deputy Chief Michael Morlan said it went out as a weather alert, which meant it reached more people than intended.
Morlan was unable to say how many people got the notification, but at least one KSAT viewer who was in Las Vegas at the time reported receiving an evacuation notice through a third-party weather app.
Although the notification contained latitude and longitude coordinates at the bottom, the map in the notification display showed the entire county.
Morlan said BCOEM would work with its vendor to make sure the incident didn’t happen again.
“I mean, we’re ... the ones who clicked to send, right? So ultimately, we’re taking that responsibility that we did that,” he said.
Once the county realized the notification was going out further than the evacuation area, Morlan said it was canceled.
The City of San Antonio also sent out its own warning, which directed people to a nearby shelter.
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