Friday, June 15, 2012 Thieves hit the South Bexar County volunteer fire department  and left them with no air conditioning for a second time.  But that wasn’t all that was taken from the hard-luck station. 

Their AC unit was ripped off Tuesday despite having bars protecting it. The theft left 15 volunteer firefighters without air conditioning. 

"These guys were sitting all day Tuesday and all day yesterday at or near 100 degree temperatures," said David Crowley Sr. of South Bexar Fire and Rescue.


Station personnel believe the thieves knew when to hit and may have had a fire scanner to monitor the stations fire calls. The fire chief says the culprits wiped everything down leaving no fingerprints.  

“In 2007, we had had our air conditioner stolen in basically the same manner,” Crowley said.

This time, thieves also took LED strobe lights off their main pumper truck. The truck is now out of service and that leaves the crews short for rescue calls.  

They got the money to replace the air conditioning unit from a fundraiser this past week. They were planning to use the money to dedicate a brush truck to a fellow firefighter Alex White who died during an asthma attack last December.   

The chief says they have an idea of who may be responsible for the theft, but putting it together may take time.

 “We can narrow it down to a handful of people. It’s an issue of knowing and proving,” said Crowley.