The Seattle Fire Department responded to a large house fire on Capitol Hill Thursday morning.
The Seattle Fire Department said a house fire that killed an elderly woman on Thursday morning was caused by “smoking materials” that had been discarded in a living-room chair.
Fire department spokesman Kyle Moore said fire crews found the woman dead in the first-floor living room of the Capitol Hill home.
Fire crews were called to the house in the 400 block of 16th Avenue East just before 9 a.m. for a report of smoke coming from the home. A woman living next door to the home told The Seattle Times said she and her teenage teeange daughter smelled smoke then walked outside to find firefighters arriving.
When firefighters crewsarrived they found a 76-year-old man suffering from smoke inhalation, as well as burns to his hands and face, outside the home. on fire.The man told firefighters there was someone else inside the home.
Most Read Local Stories
The man’s mother was found dead in a room on the first floor, Moore said. Neither the woman’s identity nor a cause of the fire were have been released Thursday.
The house sustained $150,000 damage and there was $60,000 damage to the contents of the home. The injured son and a roommate, as well as the roommate’s dog, neither of whom were injured, were displaced by the fire, Moore said.
According to property records, the woman was 92. Neighbors said she the woman had lived at the house for more than 40 years, but said she was ailing and wasrarely seen outside.
Irini Topalidou was among the neighbors who congregated around the fire trucks Thursday morning. to watch firefighters work, among them was Irini Topalidou.
Topalidou said she used to live in a house across the street from the home that caught fire. and a friend contacted her about the blaze.While Topalidou didn’t know the elderly woman or her son very well, she said they were pleasant. plesant.
Moore said that because the blaze occurred in a neighborhood where the homes are densely desnselypacked together, the fire department theybrought in extra fire crews from across the city to helpkeep the flames firefrom spreading.