Firefighters responded early Thursday morning as a large fire swept through a Far East Dallas apartment complex, leaving 23 families homeless.
September 16, 2021 – By Catherine Marfin – Source Dallas Morning News
The American Red Cross has been called to help the residents of about two dozen apartments that were damaged early Thursday by a large fire at a Far East Dallas complex.
Dallas Fire-Rescue responded to the fire just before 1 a.m. at 11050 Woodmeadow Parkway, near Ferguson Road and Interstate 635.
The three-story apartment complex had heavy flames coming through its roof when firefighters arrived. The blaze was “well advanced,” but first repsonders were able to cut it off by attacking it through a breezeway in front of the flames, Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans said.
Of the 24 apartments in the building, 12 sustained damage. The rest were uninhabitable because of water and smoke, Evans said. One of the units in the building was not occupied.
One resident was taken to a hospital with burns that were not believed to be life-threatening. He was hurt while he was trying to escape the building, Evans said. No other injuries were reported.
Dallas Fire-Rescue investigators think the fire began in a third-floor apartment but don’t know yet the exact cause.
Firefighters were headed back into the building around 9 a.m. to clear debris and put out embers they feared could reignite the fire, a spokesman said at the scene.
Fire alarms were still whirling as residents, who had yet to be placed in temporary housing, watched from the complex’s parking lot.
Jelisa Richards, 32, who lives in the building next door, described the fire as “devastating.” She was at work when the fire started, but came home after her 13-year-old son called her and said the building was being evacuated.
Her son was asleep in their car this morning, and the family wasn’t allowed back into the building because of safety concerns.
Wesley Gaddison’s second-floor apartment was near the heart of the fire.
Gaddison, 34, said he was waiting to be told where to go and whether or not he could grab things from his apartment. A spokesman on the scene said the fire department advised it was not safe for residents for go back into the building.
The apartment manager said the complex was waiting on an official report as to what caused the fire, and residents would be moved into vacant housing at a sister property across the highway.
Krystle Kennison, 36, was comforting friends at the scene. Kennison lives in a nearby building unaffected by the fire.
”I didn’t think anything of it,” she recalled thinking after waking up to alarms and sirens. “But then I woke up to this mess.”
Others who lived in the complex said their apartments were flooded by fire hoses, and some cars sustained damage from debris.
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