A large fire broke out at the Comfort Inn near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Tuesday afternoon.
The two-story hotel is located along Texas 114 near Freeport Parkway in Irving on the northeast side of the airport.
Guests who were inside at the time said they had just minutes to escape.
"I just thought somebody pulled the alarm, so I took some toilet paper, shoved it in my ears and sat there for a little while," said Rene Garza.
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Garza said only a couple of minutes elapsed before he peeked into the hall and smelled smoke.
"We went around, the elevator was closed off. We walked to the stairway, opened the stairway. We were on the second floor. The third floor was just full of smoke, and that’s when we decided it was time to get out," he said.
By the time he made it down, Garza said he had to use the clothes he managed to grab to cover his face as he worked his way through the lobby.
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"The stuff you see in the movies, it’s real. I mean, it’s that thick. You can barely see anything," said Garza.
Anthony Kennedy, a spokesperson for Irving Fire said preliminary findings show the fire began on the third floor where firefighters worked to rescue some guests and searched for others.
“Within a few minutes, it was upgraded to a four-alarm fire, so it was advancing really, really quickly," said Kennedy.
Soon, Kennedy said the collapse was imminent and firefighters were forced to retreat.
“Since the search was interrupted, we don’t have any count right now," he said.
As of Tuesday evening, Irving Fire was still working with hotel management to determine if anyone was unaccounted for.
Smoke and debris from the fire blew across the highway, which forced police to close the roadway in both directions until visibility improves. All lanes were reopened shortly after 6:30 p.m.
The cause of the fire is not yet known and no injuries have been reported.
2011 TEXAS WILDFIRES
In April 2011, during an extreme drought, four out-of-control wildfires burning in close proximity to each other were dubbed The Possum Kingdom Complex Fire. The fires scorched 126,000 acres of parched Texas ranch land and destroyed 168 homes and two churches.
Senior Meteorologist David Finfrock said in the NBC 5 docu-series Inside the Storm: Texas Burning, that at that time the period from August 2010 to July 2011 was the driest 12 consecutive months on record.
Later that summer, in August, a second fire erupted near the lake called the PK 101 Ranch fire. That fire burned more than 6,000 additional acres on the south side of the lake and destroyed nearly 40 more homes.
On Sept. 4, 2011, a massive wildfire erupted in Central Texas. The Bastrop County Complex Fire, east of Austin, became the most destructive wildfire in Texas history. More than 1,600 homes and structures were destroyed when 32,000 acres were scorched, including 96% of the 6,565-acre Bastrop State Park. Two people died in the fires.
During that 2011 fire season, the Texas A&M Forest Service said more than 31,000 fires burned more than four million acres across the state and destroyed 2,947 homes.
