Dallas gas explosion at apartment complex injures at least 4

DALLAS - A suspected gas explosion and fire were reported on Thursday at an apartment building in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas.

Dallas Fire

What we know:

The fire was reported around 1:15 p.m. near the corner of East 9th Street and North Patton Avenue.

According to Dallas Fire-Rescue, several victims have been reported. At least four people have been taken to a hospital for treatment.

Sources told FOX 4 that DFR crews were en route to the location to investigate reports of a gas leak when the explosion occurred.

Images from SKY 4 showed a small apartment complex that was fully engulfed in flames. The windows on neighboring buildings appeared to be blown out and debris was scattered across the street. There also appeared to be a utility truck that was affected by the fire.

A large plume of black smoke was initially visible in Dallas for miles.

At about 3:30 p.m., DFR upgraded its response to five alarms with more than 100 firefighters.

What we don't know:

While people in the area reported hearing an explosion, the exact cause of the fire is still unknown. 

Dallas police and city leaders held a news conference on Thursday afternoon but would not answer any questions from reporters.

It's still not yet clear how many people were in the building at the time and how many people were hurt in total.

"The fire is contained, but our members are still working on the scene to do primary searches. We put a drone in the air to canvas the area to see if we have any, if we see any victims or anything around," said DFR Assistant Chief James Ross. "At this time, it's unknown how many possible fatalities we may have."

What they're saying:

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and other city leaders did take a moment to ask for prayers for the families who are affected.

"I want to encourage our entire city, this entire state and entire nation, to come together and pray for all the people, all the families who are affected by this tragedy we are experiencing here today in our city. We ask everyone to please pray for our Dallas Fire-Rescue personnel who are still fighting this fire. They do an amazing job under very, very difficult circumstances like this. And we just pray that they will be safe while they try to save and help every single person they can affected by this," said Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson.

Neighbor Reactions

What they're saying:

Neighbors said they heard a loud boom, and they felt their own apartments shake. 

"I was chilling in my living room and bam, loud explosion. I mean, what I now know to be an explosion. But I thought a car ran into my house was my guess. My dogs went nuts. I started to kind of check in just through the windows. I'm like, ‘What the hell was that?’ I walked outside and then some of my neighbors were already outside kind of looking to the east from Bishop Arts District and there was a massive plume of smoke," said Mike Sirois, who lives nearby.

Sirois was initially worried that the smoke was coming from Adamson High School, which is nearby. Thankfully, it was not.

Dallas radio personality Hawkeye, from Hawkeye in the Morning on 96.3, was also in the area at the time. 

"I just saw the flames, the smoke. You can see the smoke from about two miles away," he said. "I didn't hear the explosion, but I will tell you there are a number of ambulances here. I mean a ton of them here."

Adamson High School

What we know:

The Dallas Independent School District confirmed that everyone is safe at Adamson High School, which is near where the explosion happened.

School is out for the summer, but there were reportedly some teachers in the building. Those staff members were sent home out of an abundance of caution, the district said.

The school building is now being used as a family assistance center for those who were affected by what happened.