Fatal fire at North Seattle retirement home ruled accidental

The north Seattle fire that killed one man and displaced nearly 80 residents of a retirement home was accidental, according to the Seattle Fire Department.

The fire broke out in a sixth-floor apartment at the Four Freedoms Retirement Home on Sunday after a resident apparently left food cooking unattended on a stove, Seattle Fire spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said this morning.

Damage is estimated at $800,000, Fitzpatrick said.

One man died and eight others were taken to the hospital for treatment. Details about the victim who died have not been released.

This is the second stove fire at the home in recent years. In 2001, a blaze started when combustible materials ignited on a stove; no one was seriously injured.

Dozens of residents were evacuated, and the Red Cross asked to help house up to 80 people whose apartments on the sixth and seventh floors were damaged by smoke or flame, Fitzpatrick said.

During the fire, several elderly residents were coaxed down rescue ladders to safety, and an 80-year-old man inched his way around the outside of several seventh-floor balconies to escape smoke and flames.

The fire was reported at 4:47 p.m. on the sixth floor of the facility in the 700 block of North 135th Street in Seattle.

As a nearby tree caught fire and portions of the 310-unit, government-subsidized complex filled with smoke, residents headed to safety.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

Four Freedoms resident Bunny Hudec, 78, was outside washing her car when she heard a "poof" — a sound like a small explosion. She looked up and saw a person on fire step onto a sixth-floor balcony. She also saw flames shooting from the building.

"Oh, terrible, terrible," she said.

On the fourth floor, resident Jean Petty, 79, opened her door and didn't see anything. But when she looked out her back window, she could see black smoke blowing.

"Dorothy [her neighbor] and I decided we were leaving," she said.

The emergency response included 14 fire engines, five ladder trucks and four medic units, Fitzpatrick said.

Eight residents were transported to area hospitals, most complaining of shortness of breath. Twelve others were treated at Four Freedoms.

Residents of the apartment gathered in the parking lot outside the building, some wrapped in white blankets to stay warm. Metro buses provided immediate shelter for some residents.

Some apartments were damaged and the sixth and seventh floors remained off-limits.

David Gallaher, 52, lived in the building next door to Four Freedoms. He had come outside to have a cigarette when he saw flames flickering from the complex. He, too, saw a person in flames step out, then fall backward.

"Then I didn't see him again," Gallaher said.

In a nearby unit, a woman stepped onto her deck and bent over the rail to catch her breath.

"We yelled at her to put a wet towel over her face," Gallaher said. But the woman hugged the railing and wouldn't move until firefighters came and rescued her.

Gallaher also watched a man climb over his own deck's railing and along the decks of three units to escape the fire.

That resident, Leonard Lynch, 80, lives on the seventh floor, above where the fire appeared to have started. He heard what sounded like several loud pops — "like jars or cans exploding," he said.

His apartment filled with smoke, so he went out on his deck.

"I saw the flames and that the tree had caught on fire," he said. "Smoke was blowing right in my face."

So he climbed over the deck railing and onto a narrow ledge, which he used to inch himself past several units to safety. There, fire officials told him he should stay put.

About 30 minutes later, firefighters brought him down in an elevator.

Lynch's 81st birthday is Tuesday. "It's quite a birthday party, huh?" he said.

Erin Hoffman, of Edmonds, came to the scene after her husband heard about the fire. Her 91-year-old grandmother lives in the building.

When Hoffman first arrived, "I couldn't find her, and I was hysterical," she said.

Eventually, Hoffman found her grandmother, who "told me she was quite proud of herself, and quite enjoyed the walk down the ladder with two handsome firemen. She said the firemen told her she did a great job."

This is the third fire at Four Freedoms since 1993, when serial arsonist Paul Keller ignited a blaze that killed three elderly residents and caused $1 million in damage.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294; or jensullivan@seattletimes.com contributed to this report.