And we begin with breaking News
A5 alarm fire in East Dallas.
More than 100 firefighters on the
scene as flames and smoke break
out at a senior living facility.
Thank you for joining us.
I'm Cynthia Sierra
and of Crystal Lawrence's fire has
been burning for more than three hours
and the smoke is so thick people
in the area say they're having a
hard time breathing. Yeah, it's all
happening once again like
we said in East Dallas,
this is just West of Buckner Blvd.
Off of John West Road,
Morgan Young is live there on the
scene where dozens of older residents
were evacuated, Morgan.
Yeah, I see I do want to start with this.
There were reports earlier that
two firefighters were taken to
the hospital with injuries.
I just want to update that and say that
those firefighters suffered minor burns.
Minor injuries.
DFR says they are expected to be OK
and we still do not have any reports
of residents who were injured.
So there are some good news there.
That initial call went out at
about 6:30 so we were going on
about four hours of crews working
to get this under control.
There are still crews working to
pose this building and and get
this situation under control.
The fire started on the 2nd floor.
One of our photographers.
Saw the flames on the 2nd floor.
He said he watched as that floor
collapsed onto the 1st floor and about
an hour and a half ago we watched
as flames were coming through the
top of this building and this is a
three story senior living facility
so that second floor collapsed and
the flames were coming out of the
third story and earlier tonight we
actually spoke with the woman who says
that she lives on the 2nd floor of
this building where this fire started.
Of course, I just smelled smoke,
but I didn't know where to smoke was
coming from, so I opened up my door
in my apartment and I saw smoke.
I'm terrified. Everything I own is in there.
What am I going to do if I,
if I lose everything,
I don't have anything?
This is everything.
And you know when you think
about the people who live here,
the signs that are out here advertising
for people to least here are asking
for residents 55 years and older.
We saw quite a few people with
disabilities and who are talking
about different health conditions
using walkers to get around.
So these are the people who are living here.
It good news. Luckily again,
no reports of residents
being injured at this time,
but we were speaking to quite a few
of them who were having difficulty
breathing out here who are trying to
get in touch with loved ones out here
and who were having difficulty moving
once they came out of that building.
Is he?
Yeah, yeah. Morgan, you talk about
the difficulty breathing and as I
see these elderly people and then
I'm reminded of the video you posted
earlier tonight on Twitter describing
to us just how thick that smoke was.
Yeah, I think so.
We're on the road that we're on now.
This building is kind of shaped like
an L so it goes around to a street
that's perpendicular to this one.
So that is actually where we started tonight.
I'd say we got here at about 7:15,
so in that time about an hour
the smoke got so thick we were
having a hard time breathing.
So I, you know we were watching residents
who were struggling to breathe as well.
Some of them started wearing the mask that
we've been hearing through the pandemic.
I spoke with one woman whose eyes
were watering and she said that
she has asthma and that she was
really struggling to breathe.
We were able to connect.
With a paramedic,
but a really difficult situation
and so many of those residents
were having similar issues,
I would say about an hour and a half.
Two hours ago,
a lot of the residents were
transported to a shelter,
an American Red Cross shelter,
and then some residents were actually
able to get home with family that
lives in the area so we don't see
many of those residents still here,
but that was certainly an issue
as that smoke was getting thicker.
I'd say at about 8:00 o'clock
eight thirty alright,
our thanks to
you Morgan young reporting
live in East Dallas.
The scene of that five alarm fire.
We can tell you that some residents
were also taken to the Samuel Grand
Rec Center that's at 6200 E Grand St
about four miles away from the fire.
The American Red Cross will
be there helping people.
If you have family members who live at
that assisting assisted living center,
the best thing to do is to
get them to that rec center.
Some residents told us they
left too quickly and were not
able to grab their phones,
so they can't call their families right now.