Two people were taken to the hospital and 20 people lost their homes after a fire tore through a Dallas apartment building Sunday, officials said.
DALLAS — Firefighters instructed an apartment tenant to put out his balcony fire pit less than two weeks before a fire that began on the same balcony destroyed a 30-unit apartment building, Dallas Fire-Rescue officials confirmed to WFAA.
Everyone survived the fire at the Garrison Apartments in Lake Highlands early Sunday morning, but firefighters said they had to rescue five people from inside the burning building and bring two to the hospital for treatment.
Neighbors said several people had to jump out of upper-story windows to escape the flames.
“All the neighbors were running and screaming, saying there’s people stuck on the third floor,” recounted Jennifer Villatoro, who lives in the building next door.
Justin Jones said his second-story apartment — and much of what was inside — was destroyed by the flames. His father grabbed his cat and jumped out of the window, he said.
“I thought the worst — that somebody had died or something,” Jones said.
Both Jones and Villatoro said they believed a first floor neighbor’s balcony fire pit is to blame for the blaze.
“It was an accident waiting to happen, and we have all noticed it,” Villatoro said.
She said she could regularly see the flames from the fire pit from the parking lot, and said she saw its fires stretching above the balcony railing.
“It wasn’t something small,” she said.
Jones said he worried about it too: “It always made me nervous every time I saw it. I was like, ‘I don’t think that’s safe.'”
The fire department would not confirm which specific unit Sunday’s fire began in, but confirmed it started on the balcony of a first floor unit “where combustibles were left too close to a heat source.”
“From there, the fire spread the height of the building to the roof before spreading across the entire attic space,” DFR Public Information Office Jason Evans said in a statement.
The department said it had previously visited the same apartment unit on the night of December 16, when apartment managers called and said a tenant was burning trash on his patio, Evans said.
“Firefighters made contact with the tenant and told him that he needed to extinguish a fire pit and multiple candles he was burning on his patio, which was done before DFR cleared the scene,” Evans said.
Evans said as Sunday’s fire was ruled accidental, and that the department would not be referring any tenant for criminal charges.
Char McCurdy, the Chief Operating Officer of Summit Property Management, said he is working with the Red Cross and other charities to ensure displaced tenants have somewhere to go while his company helps to find a permanent housing solution for them.
“Our company has strict policies and enforcement on grills, open flames and fire pits anywhere near the structures,” McCurdy said in an emailed statement to WFAA. “There have been multiple residents recently cited for violations of our policies and enforcement actions—up to and including eviction—have been taken in these matters.”
“I don’t think this dude was purposefully trying to burn down the building,” Jones said. “I mean it sucks. [It’s] stressful, sad. [There’s a] little bit of anger, but there’s nothing we really can do.”