A Dallas firefighter is in stable condition after being hurt Friday afternoon battling a 2-alarm fire at a rural church.
The fire at the Pleasant Valley Baptist Church on Haymarket Road was first reported at 12:32 p.m. Firefighters with Dallas Fire-Rescue arrived at 12:39 p.m. and reported heavy smoke and fire coming from the roof.
Firefighters began attacking the fire immediately, DFR said, and a second alarm was called at 1:18 p.m.
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At about 2:30 p.m., DFR Chief Justin Ball confirmed to NBC 5 that a firefighter had been injured and was taken to Baylor University Medical Center in stable condition. Ball said the firefighter suffered smoke inhalation.
Ball said the second alarm was requested due to heat so crews could be rotated and cooled. The fire, Ball said, was still burning as of 2:30 p.m. and was not yet out.
According to Ball, the church's pastor was inside the building when he spotted smoke in a hallway and called 911. The cause of the fire is not yet known, and no other injuries have been reported.
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Pastor Paul David Taylor’s daughter carried her father’s Bible from the church. She said, if nothing else, he’d want to make sure it was the one item not lost in the ruins. Pastor Taylor said he was in office reading from this bible when the fire started.
“I was just studying the scriptures like I always do that time of day and I smelled something,” said Pastor Taylor. “So, all I did was go to the door and open the door and then the smoke.”
He said called the fire department. Then he made another important call.
“I came out on the porch over here and I called my dear sweet wife. And I said, ‘Jeanie the church is on fire. Pray,’” he said.
As for the church, the offices, library and study hall are destroyed. However, several books and study materials were salvaged. And, in what Pastor Taylor calls a move of God, the pews inside the sanctuary were virtually untouched by the flames.
While the fire department hasn’t cleared the sanctuary for Sunday worship, Pastor P.D. Taylor is confident there will be a service.
“What I thought the whole time was ‘the Lord is in it.’ There’s a reason and I don’t have to worry about it,” he said. “Because when I’m his child, he takes care of me like a child. And He takes care of this church like a child.”
Dallas Fire Rescue says both today’s fire and the fire last week at First Baptist Dallas remain under investigation.
