Fire in vacant Lake City apartment building

Lake City fire photo by John Odegard

By David Cuerpo in Fireline

Seattle — Early Wednesday morning, May 10, 2023 at 4:42am, the Seattle Fire Department’s Fire Alarm Center received 911 calls reporting a fire in a two-story vacant apartment building at the 13500 block of Lake City Way NE. 

Engine 39 arrived first on scene at 4:48am and confirmed heavy smoke and flames coming through boarded up windows of the building. They removed several boards to gain access to the fire, but quickly realized it was not safe to enter due to high heat, smoke and unkept conditions of the vacant building.

Battalion 6 took command of the scene and ordered all responding units to transition to a defensive strategy by pouring water on the fire at a safe distance away from the building. 

Photos by John Odegard

Seattle Police and the Seattle Department of Transportation were requested to the scene to close down Lake City Way NE so firefighters could work safely. 

At 5:04am, the Deputy Chief took command of the scene and upgraded the incident to a 2-alarm fire requesting additional resources to protect adjacent buildings from the fire.

The scene began to stabilize by 5:29am and crews had the fire under control thirty minutes later. A few units remain on scene through the morning to monitor for flare ups. 

No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is currently under investigation.