Some 90 firefighters fought a fire early Wednesday morning that spread to a boardinghouse from an apartment building under construction.
Firefighters battled a two-alarm blaze in a building under construction in the 5200 block of 12th Avenue Northeast early Wednesday morning.
Calls about the fire came in around 3:40 a.m., and it was out at by about 4:45 a.m., said Kyle Moore, spokesman for the Seattle Fire Department.
Three buildings were damaged, but there were no injuries, he said. Eight people were displaced.
The fire began in a three-story townhome complex under construction on the southwest corner of Northeast 55th Street and 12th Avenue Northeast, Moore said.
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The blaze spread to the attic of an older boardinghouse to the south, and eight people were evacuated.
“At one point we were fighting both fires from the outside, because it was too dangerous to go inside,” Moore said. The blaze was declared a two-alarm fire at that point and about 90 firefighters were involved.
“The embers of the fire moved west and landed on the roof of the house next door,” he said.
“We knocked that one down pretty quickly, but it took about an hour to completely extinguish the flames” on the building under construction and the boardinghouse, Moore said.
No one was hurt, but the eight people from the boardinghouse will not be able to return to the building because of the extensive damage, Moore said. The Red Cross is assisting them.
The potential of the construction project collapsing made fighting the blaze more difficult for firefighters, Moore said. High-voltage power lines next to the house also added to the challenge.
A power pole next to the building holds 26,000-volt primary lines as well as residential lines, and some of them were on fire, Moore said. But the lines that came down were communication lines and not dangerous, he said.
Seattle City Light spokesman Scott Thomsen said power to 630 customers was cut off as crews worked to replace the cross arms of the pole that were burned. Power was restored by about 11 a.m. on Wednesday, he said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, but investigators can’t enter the the under-construction building because there’s a danger of it collapsing, Moore said.
The fire department estimates about $350,000 in damage to the three buildings, according to a news release.