On Saturday, February 11th, at 12:07 a.m., Dallas Fire-Rescue units responded to a 911 call for a structure fire at the old Valley View Mall, located at 13331 Preston Road, in North Dallas.
Firefighters arrived to the sight of thick black smoke coming from the three-story building, in the area where the movie theater was located. Firefighters deployed handlines and worked their way through the building to find a fire, which had mostly burned itself out, on the ground floor, as well as another fire on the floor above. A second alarm response was transmitted for manpower, which resulted in the approximate total of 45 – 50 firefighters responding to mitigate the situation. The fire was officially declared extinguished almost four hours later.
Despite the duration of this incident, there was more time spent ventilating smoke from the structure, to confirm there was no fire remaining, than actually extinguishing flames.
There were no injuries reported as a result of this incident, but there was one homeless man who had to be rescued from the roof after the smoke build-up left it as his only place of refuge. The man was uninjured and is not believed to have anything to do with the fire’s origin. As it currently stands, the cause of the fire is undetermined and under investigation.
