10:31 PM: Big Seattle Fire response now in the 6500 block of 35th SW. Updates shortly.
10:37 PM: 35th northbound is blocked at SW Holly, according to the scanner. We’ve just arrived in the area; there’s also an engine in the southbound lanes at 35th north of Morgan.
10:42 PM: No fire, though alarms were going off, firefighters have determined (this is in the apartments next to WS Food Bank). So they’re packing up.
the address that realtime 911 gave is just south of or part of the building that has the food bank..hope it’s not serious..
Two of the trucks have left already… the big ladder truck and one more engine is still there.. packing up the hoses they had across 35th. Its the building that has the food bank in it.. South East Corner of 35th and Morgan. Right across the street from me.
Just got the alarms turned off.
If memory serves me correctly, This was the site of another apartment building that burned to the ground over 40 years ago.
strike em, you are correct. It was just a lot, or so, up from the corner, and the remnants of the foundation sat there for probably 30 years or so, likely until the Food Bank Building was built.
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I only have a very vague memory of the fire, so don’t recall any details.
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Mike
I don’t see how that could have necessitated closing the block? Usually there’s an alarm that occasionally goes off in the apartment building next to the building w/ the food bank, but in the absence of any flames, they don’t seal off a whole block!
“…they don’t seal off a whole block!”
Sure they do, when there are fire hoses laid across the pavement- it’s illegal to drive over them.
I moved to the building across the street (next to the Pizza Hut) in 1993… this place had been a Teriyaki restaurant, then a Mexican restaurant, then back to a Teriyaki place… then it was empty for a long time before they tore it down…. Sat an empty lot for YEARS before they build the new building there with the Food Bank.
And yes, They had hoses laid across the road, connected to the Hydrant on my side of the street… so the street was closed at Holly and at Morgan
Where were the flames that justified the hoses lying in the street???? If there was nothing more than a alarm, they didn’t need to pull the hoses out and shut the block down. As I said, there have been alarms that have gone off in the Apartment building next to the food bank, but those alarms did not necessitate pulling the hoses out and shutting the block down since there were no flames in those cases, just as there were no flames last night>
I can only assume you are asking out of a fundamental misunderstanding of SFD’s responsibility. I didn’t have as intricate an understanding until covering news at the neighborhood level for these past seven years. Their responsibility is to get to the scene fast in numbers and with procedures that prepare for the worst. Lives can be lost if they just send one unit and have everybody stand around waiting to check to see if there are flames or not. Listen to the scanner for a while sometime when you can spare a day or a night. Fires don’t always present as flames shooting through the roof in spectacular fashion. Fires can be burning or smoldering inside walls, under roofs, along wiring. They get there and lay hoses until it’s obvious there’s no reason to, especially when it’s a full response to a potential fire in a home or residential/business building, and if/when it’s clear the line is not needed, they roll it up, as one engine on the east side of the street was doing even as we left after checking at the scene. Sometimes there is verification quickly, sometimes there is not. This was NOT a “fire alarm” call (you will see those on the online 911 system as AFA 4+1+1 or Auto Fire Alarm) – this was a “fire in building” call – I am not privy to what was reported via 911 and why it went out as the latter instead of the former but the latter is what SFD responded to. – TR
Sorry, comment time is over.
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