A fire broke out Friday night in Lake Union, near Seattle, spreading across two boats and two houseboats.
The incident occurred near China Harbor Restaurant at 2000 Westlake Avenue, according to The Seattle Times.
Footage of the flames was taken by a worker at a nearby restaurant. The video, shared on Twitter, appeared to show one of the boats engulfed in flames.
FIRE lake union – China Harbor- Spreading house boat to house boat pic.twitter.com/QF77yX08Hc
— M S F O X (@tarynstowe) August 6, 2022
Firefighters with the Seattle Fire Department responded to the incident just after 11 p.m., KOMO-TV reported.
The fire department sent more than a dozen units to respond to a “fire in building,” a live alert from the department said.
A unit from the Seattle Police Department’s Harbor Patrol unit was also deployed at the scene, according to KCPQ-TV. The flames were so large that the outlet’s weather cameras captured them, KCPQ reported.
Footage shared on Twitter by KCPQ reporter Hana Kim showed emergency vehicles and firefighters on site.
Have you seen a boat fire before?
Shortly after 11 pm a massive house boat fire erupted on Lake Union. Cars are being rerouted on Westlake Ave close to our #FOX13Seattle studios. We are told it was a 2 alarm fire pic.twitter.com/QG2YnlWQtC
— Hana Kim (@hanamkim) August 6, 2022
Firefighters extinguished the inferno at around 12:25 a.m., Seattle Fire Department public information officer David Cuerpo said, according to the Times.
Authorities diverted traffic while firefighters worked to get the fire under control, according to KCPQ.
“The key thing that was a challenge for firefighters when it comes to any type of marina fire is access to the fire. So, that’s one of the reasons why we encourage all residents on a boat or a houseboat to quickly evacuate to allow us the capacity to get on to the dock,” Cuerpo told the news station.
The public information officer did not specify any details about the damage the boats received due to the incident, the Times reported.
“I went up to the upper deck to grab a soda from the upstairs fridge, and I see that my neighbor’s houseboat is, the top floor is engulfed in flames,” Patrick Christell, a neighbor, told KCPQ.
“I dialed 911 and go to my neighbor’s boat, my neighbor, Sam, knock on his door to say it’s time to go,” he continued.
“Unplug my power from my boat and turn off my DC power inside the boat, unplug his boat and then we sort of just walk out of the marina, and the 911 operator told me the fire brigade was very close and so we could hear the sirens but in the time I did all that, the whole boat went up,” Christell said.
The fire was a two-alarm fire, according to KCPQ.
“It probably took two minutes for, it was a two-story house barge, and it started in the upper floor, the bedroom level there, and yeah, in the two minutes it took me to rally my neighbor and figure out what was going on, the whole thing was up,” Christell said of the speed of the fire.
Officials with the fire department are investigating the incident.
