More than 85 Seattle firefighters responded to a two-alarm fire in a vacant building in the Chinatown International District early Monday.
Firefighters responded to the 1000 block of South Jackson Street around 12:03 a.m. Monday and were met with heavy smoke and flames coming from the building, the Seattle Fire Department said in a blog post.
Crews poured water on the fire from outside the building. Crews also used three ladder trucks to pour water on the fire from above, the department said.
The structure housed the former Viet-Wah supermarket, which closed in 2022.
As of 4:30 a.m., crews were still working to extinguish the fire before searching the building. The department posted on X at 1:25 p.m. that an excavator is helping its crews stabilize the scene.
There are no injuries, the department said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The fire had led King County Metro to reroute some bus routes off South Jackson Street.
In 2022, owners closed Viet-Wah, citing factors such as crime in the neighborhood, challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic and plans to redevelop the land for new apartment and retail space.
Opened in 1981, the supermarket started with a focus on China and founder Duc Tran’s native country of Vietnam, before adding goods from Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines and other Asian countries.
Tran expanded the business into a second location in Renton, which remains open.
The site was being considered for a mixed-use development that would include 450 apartments, two to three levels of parking and ground-floor retail.
The proposed development would have required the demolition of two commercial buildings on the block, including Viet-Wah’s, according to a February 2022 report discussing the property.
The fire comes days after the Seattle City Council unanimously approved new rules to expedite the condemnation of abandoned and unsafe structures.
Mayor Bruce Harrell had introduced the bill in April, giving new authority to the chief of SFD — currently Harold Scoggins — to declare a building a “public nuisance.”
Instead of a lengthy process, in which city officials go through the Department of Construction and Inspections, the chief can now choose to fence off, reinforce or tear down a building. Property owners would pay the cost.
Emergency crews responded to 130 fires in vacant buildings in Seattle last year, up from 91 the previous year and 77 the year before that.
Material from The Seattle Times archives was used in this story.
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