Irving police raced door to door as apartment fire consumed three floors

Officers cleared 30 units in six minutes at the Newport Apartments; no injuries were reported.

New video shows the dramatic moments Irving police officers raced door to door to evacuate residents as a fire consumed three floors of the Newport Apartments.

More than a dozen people were displaced in the Sept. 25 fire, but no one was injured. Officers cleared 30 units in just six minutes as Irving firefighters responded to the two-alarm blaze.

“Yeah, the whole building’s engulfed,” someone could be heard saying in a video recorded just two and a half minutes after the first 911 call was placed.

“Get out, get out, get out!” another person shouted.

The fire was reported around 9:30 p.m. Officer Maria Herring said eight of her Irving Police Department colleagues ran from door to door to evacuate residents.

“At first you hear the radio traffic come out, be en route to a fire,” Herring said. “You hear that, and then you start to hear some of the distress of, ok, we’re going to start evacuating. You can hear the fire alarms in the background as well.”

Herring recalled finding residents who had been sleeping as the fire spread.

“I particularly recall a mother and two children who were inside the apartment, and they were asleep at the time of the fire,” Herring said.

Johnson Spruiel was among those evacuated.

“It wasn't until the police officer showed up on the scene that I realized that something was really wrong,” Spruiel said.

Spruiel said he was getting ready for bed when officers arrived.

“I left immediately. I had no shoes on, I was about to go to sleep, and we rushed outside only to see smoke billowing out the top and a bunch of evacuees in the parking lot. The police were moving us into a safe location just as the fire trucks arrived,” Spruiel said.

When NBC 5 met Spruiel, he was packing to move. He said the building will be demolished.

Despite being displaced, Spruiel was grateful no one was injured. Irving firefighters battled the two-alarm blaze while police officers focused on getting residents to safety.

“You always play the what-ifs in your head, right? But we’re trained to do certain things, right? We’re not trained to fight fires, certainly, but we’re going to save a life, right? And if that means we have to put our lives on the line to save a life, then that’s what we’re going to do,” Herring said.

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.