DALLAS, Texas — An incident report linked to a three-alarm fire in Dallas late Tuesday night says that it took the Dallas 911 Call Center almost six minutes to assign a fire crew to respond to the blaze.
The Dallas Fire Fighters Association president, Jim McDade, told WFAA that time has usually hovered between 40 seconds and 1 minute on recent calls over the previous month.
According to Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans, an internal investigation is now underway to determine what went wrong.
The fire was reported shortly before 10 p.m. at the Forest Hill Apartments in the 9600 block of Forest Lane, just northeast of Interstate 635.
No injuries or deaths were reported, but the Red Cross told WFAA that about 24 units were destroyed in the fire, and about 100 residents were displaced.
Dallas Fire-Rescue responded with about 60-70 firefighters, officials said.
When they arrived, they saw flames coming from the second floor of the three-story apartment building, spokesman Jason Evans said.
The fire spread to the third floor and then into the attic space and roof of the building, escalating the response from Dallas Fire-Rescue.
Firefighters got the fire under control by early Wednesday morning.
Investigators believe the fire started on the second floor, but the cause is still under investigation.
The incident report for the fire reads that a 911 operator picked up a call about the fire around 9:52 p.m.
The first Dallas Fire-Rescue was alerted to respond to the fire around 9:58 p.m.
Dallas Fire Station 29 is one mile away or roughly three minutes.
Once fire crews started heading to the scene--they logged an above-average response time, according to McDade, of three minutes and fifteen seconds.
According to city data, the department gets to structure fires within five minutes and 20 seconds from the time a call is received to 911 and the time the first engine arrives on scene 87% of the time.
This instance took nine minutes and seven seconds from when the call came in -- to when units first arrived at the fire.
"When the first companies got there -- there was an enormous amount of fire, probably due to a delay in response," McDade said.
"This should raise some serious questions amongst members of the department and the public as to why this happened. Every minute of delay, the fire doubles in size."
Evans told WFAA Thursday night that, "Initial details suggest that during a high call volume period, there appears to have been errors and delays in the 911 call processing and dispatching of units to this incident. The Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Station Notification (Locution) systems functioned properly."
He continued by saying, "After the conclusion of the investigation, any identified deficiencies will be addressed through, at a minimum, process improvement, and personnel training."
The Dallas City Manager's Office told WFAA, "We'll take a deep look at why this was an outlier."
And Mayor Eric Johnson followed up with a statement as well.
It reads:
“I have asked the city manager’s office for a full explanation for this delayed dispatch. This appears to be an isolated incident, and I am grateful for Dallas Fire-Rescue’s swift response and life-saving efforts. But it is vital that we ensure our operations and processes prevent these kinds of delays in critical situations. Our residents’ safety must always be our top priority.”