A tragic outcome followed a fierce blaze at the Whitehurst Apartments in northeast Dallas after a body was discovered amid the aftermath, days after the initial incident. Reported by The Dallas Morning News, Keith Estes, 77, was found on New Year’s Eve by officials. He had not been reported missing in the chaos that ensued following the fire, which erupted around 1:50 a.m. last Sunday. Estes, who lived alone, was located in an area weighed down by heavy debris after family members reached out for a welfare check.
The alarm was raised with a nocturnal blaze tearing through the building, displacing over 20 residents. Per the details from a release obtained by WFAA, responding firefighters encountered a three-story edifice consumed by flames. Neighbors like Jennifer Villatoro, amidst the escaping residents, told the publication, “All the neighbors were kind of like running and they were screaming saying there’s people stuck on the third floor.” The conflagration prompted immediate search and rescue operations, with firefighters executing five rescues.
During the aggressive firefighting efforts, concerns for structural stability necessitated an escalated response. “A second alarm was called because the structure was unstable,” Jason Evans, a DFR spokesperson, told The Dallas Morning News. Commanders at the scene issued an order for personnel to vacate the building, switching to a defensive strategy to contain and extinguish the fire, which was officially reported out at 4:35 a.m…