An overnight fire that destroyed 12 apartments early Saturday was started when a 7-year-old boy was playing with a lighter in an outdoor closet, officials said.
The four-alarm fire was reported just before 1 a.m. at the Vineyards at Forest Edge apartments, in the 1100 block of Audelia Road.
Firefighters arrived as flames were coming through the roof on the second floor of the two-story building.
No injuries were reported from firefighters or residents, but a security guard was taken to the hospital for a minor cut suffered while alerting residents to the fire, said Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans. A total of 22 residents were displaced, and the American Red Cross was on the scene to assist.
The fire was extinguished just after 2 a.m., Evans said in a written statement.
The mother of the boy, one of the residents of the complex, told fire investigators that her son had started the fire accidentally while playing with a lighter and "igniting combustibles," Evans said.
The boy will be enrolled in Dallas Fire-Rescue's Juvenile Firesetters Intervention Program.
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