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Nov 17, 2008 4:19 pm US/Central
More Than 80 Displaced After Irving Apartment Fire
IRVING (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
A morning fire in Irving has left some 80 people displaced. According to the assistant chief of the Irving Fire Department, the blaze reached 4-alarms partially because there wasn't enough water, in the older section of the city, to fight the blaze.
The fire, at the Las Hacienda Apartments in the 500 block of O'Conner, broke out just after 6 a.m.
Dozens of apartment residents are now homeless, either because of the fire itself or because of water damage to their units.
While everyone seems grateful that no residents were hurt in the blaze, those displaced are left to cope with the loss of their belongings.
Monday afternoon, 12-year-old Karina Bega sifted through her belongings, like scores of other Las Hacienda residents.
Fire investigators say, unbeknownst to the Bega family a cooking fire in their apartment spread to the attic and burned through the ceiling.
The family was asleep when the flames and smoke became visible. "I got really scared, because I thought we were going to die," Karina explained. "I just remember people knocking and screaming and just like running downstairs and screaming 'we were on fire'."
Apartment resident Patty Contreras said she only had enough time to make sure her parents were okay. "I came out, I grabbed my belongings, my laptop, my iPhone of course, and I just left," she said.
For a time the fire raged out of control, requiring additional fire departments to help. Fire crews from Dallas and other cities sent units into Irving to help cover the rest of the city if needed.
Fire officials say water lines in that older section of the city aren't very large and that hampered efforts to put out the fire. "We have to lay a good distance to get to the hydrants," Irving Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Mike Evitts explained. "It's the older part of the city here and we've got water, we just don't have enough fire hydrants in this area."
In all, 19 units were damaged.
Residents spent Monday salvaging what they could. Karina's family will move in with a relative for the time being. For those without relatives to help them, the Red Cross has set up a shelter at the Senter Park Recreation Center. Officials there are expecting some 30 apartment residents by nightfall.
This is the second major Dallas/Fort Worth area fire that the Red Cross has had to deal with in the past 48 hours. Since the first of November the Red Cross has helped 35 families who were burned out of their homes in single family house fires.
There was only one injury during the fire and that happened as a firefighter, dragging a hose, slipped and fell. The man broke his wrist but is expected to fully recover.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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