2 men help alert residents to Everett apartment fire
Published 11:12 pm Friday, August 7, 2009
EVERETT — Moments after Brandon Sager pulled over into a parking lot to make a cell phone call Friday afternoon, he noticed flames roaring inside a second-story apartment south of Everett.
Sager, 25, called 911.
He and his buddy, Joshua Lankford, 21, then raced through a building in the Eagles Landing Apartment Home complex near 128th Street to alert residents of the fast-spreading fire.
“The couch inside the living room was just engulfed,” Sager said. “We knocked on the doors as quick as we could.”
Sager said the fire reached the third floor within minutes.
An occupant in one of the units was asleep and had to be wakened, he said.
Their fast action helped avert potential tragedy, said Leslie Hynes, a spokeswoman for Snohomish County Fire District 1.
“We’re really grateful for getting people out,” Hynes said. “It was really a good thing that they did.”
No one was injured but a dog died in the fire, which broke out about 5 p.m. in the complex at 12601 Eighth Ave. W. near 128th Street.
One man was asleep when the fire started and was led down a fire truck ladder from a third-floor balcony.
At least two units were destroyed by fire. Hynes said she wasn’t sure if other units were damaged by the smoke.
Hynes said at least seven people were displaced overnight and at least two will need other permanent housing.
Curt Jacobson, a spokesman for Eagles Landing, said the company will try to relocate the displaced tenants to vacant apartments within the complex.
Investigators were working to determine the cause of the fire Friday evening.
A damage estimate also was not available.
Sager’s concern shifted from alerting people to the fire to running late for work as a mechanic in Everett. His car was boxed in by fire hoses.
In the end, he was given the night off.
“I guess that’s a pretty good reason,” he said.
“I said we would write them a note if we had to,” Hynes said.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.
