By David Rosen

Correction :
Just received word from Lt. Sue Stangle of the SFD, she said " Just to keep things accurate, the fire on 38th Ave S.W. was not a two alarm fire. The firefighters were able to extinguish the fire very quickly without needing to ask for more resources."

Update for 1:53 p.m. on June 7:
Just learned new information about this morning's fire from Kyle Moore, Seattle Fire Department's new Public Information Officer. He stated " The investigators at the scene said that they are calling the fire accidental and was caused by an unattended candle and they're estimating structural damage at $75,000 dollars and content loss of $25,000 dollars."

Information from Seattle Fire Department:
Seattle Firefighter’s quick response kept an apartment fire from spreading to other units. A 911 came into dispatch at 4:34 in the morning reporting a fire at a four-unit apartment complex in the 5000 block of 38th Avenue SW in West Seattle. Firefighters arrived four minutes later and found three adults outside the burning upper level apartment. The crews were able to knock the fire down within 20 minutes.

Original coverage:
Seattle firefighters quickly responded to a fire in West Seattle shortly after 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning around the 5000 block of 38th Ave S.W. on June 7th.

According to Bruce Amer from Battalion 7, “The fire broke out in the unit on the rear of the of the fourplex on the upper floor. None of the other units were involved. The unit where the fire started was completely destroyed and a little bit of extension into the attic and no other extension to any other of the units. Although with the smoke, the entire upstairs will be unoccupied for quite a while, it’s going to take us a while to get in and investigate on how the fire was started. There will be fire units on stand by for most of the day, just because they get really worried about it restarting. Everything is still under investigation.”

Seattle Fire has been dispatched to this residence several times for medic responses in the past. No one was transported to the hospital and there were no injuries.

Obie Wilkerson, who has lived next door for about a year said “ I woke up to the noise of chainsaws and I’m yelling out the back window telling them to shut the f up and all of a sudden I come outside and there is a bunch of fire trucks and didn’t know what was going on and evidently the house next door caught on fire pretty bad. The neighbors came over and some of them had a little bit of smoke inhalation in them. They came in and used the bathroom and everything, thank god I woke up and I was there to help them out. When they came out of their bedroom, all they could see was red from the fire. The guy from downstairs had really bad smoke inhalation but is ok now. It’s pretty bad in there.”