Possible fatalities after 5-alarm fire at Dallas apartment building

Fatalities have been confirmed after an explosion and large fire at an apartment building in Dallas, where at least four people were taken to a hospital, officials said.

The incident began at 12:47 p.m. on Thursday when Dallas Fire-Rescue was dispatched to a reported gas leak in the 400 block of East 9th Street in the Oak Cliff area, less than a block from W.H. Adamson High School.

“Our first responders, while they were en route to that gas leak, a subsequent explosion occurred,” Dallas Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Mark Berry said during a briefing. “We had the cavalry coming and help coming, but the explosion had already taken place.”

Crews arrived at 12:49 p.m. and quickly upgraded the response to a second alarm, according to Assistant Chief James Russ. The fire later grew to five alarms.

“The fire is contained, but our members are still working on the scene to do primary searches,” Russ said earlier in the afternoon. “We put a drone in the air to canvass the area to see if we have any victims or anything around.”

At the time, Russ said officials did not yet know how many people may have died.

“It is unknown how many possible fatalities we have,” Russ said. “And also we have four people transported to the hospital, unknown conditions at this time.”

By the 5 p.m. briefing, Berry said the response had shifted from rescue to recovery.

“There have been some individuals that have been accounted for. We are working on getting a concise number,” Berry said. “This is an active incident still. There have been fatalities at this point.”

The number of people killed was not immediately released. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.