一个four-alarm fire in the northwest part of Dallas, Texas, in September, 2005, was a near-miss for Dallas Fire-Rescue. In an instant, an apartment fire turned into a race to save one of our own. An electrical short in an air-conditioning unit on the outside of the building sparked an inferno that tested our department.
The Woodland Village Apartments were built in 1970 and consisted of more than 100 units contained in a dozen apartment buildings. The buildings were of wooden platform framed construction with full 2-inch × 10-inch floor joists between the first and second floors. The attic was framed with wooden trusses held together with gusset plates or gang nailers, and the attic space in each building was common over the entire structure.
The roof consisted of composition shingles over plywood decking. The buildings had a brick veneer exterior with decorative wood accents. Several apartments in each building had fireplaces; these had a stucco exterior with wood framing and were fabricated out of metal and had a firebox and prefabricated metal flues. The fireplace created a void space from the first floor to the attic.
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