EVERETT – Police are investigating 22 apparent arsons set early Sunday morning in laundry rooms at an apartment complex in south Everett.
“It’s not very common for 22 laundry rooms to catch fire on the same night,” Everett police Sgt. Boyd Bryant said.
Police are uncertain how many people might be responsible for starting the fires, one after another, before 5 a.m. Officials estimate some of the fires may have started as early as 1:30 a.m.
In each of the fires garbage was ignited throughout the Park Ridge Apartments at 120 W. Casino Road, officials said. About 600 people live in 42 apartment buildings, each of which has a laundry room amid tenants’ living spaces.
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Residents smelled smoke and called the Everett Fire Department, and 19 firefighters initially responded at the scene about 5 a.m. The firefighters found more fires at the scene, and a second alarm was called, bringing an additional 13 firefighters to the scene, said Warren Burns, fire marshal for the Everett Fire Department.
“It just kept growing and growing,” Burns said.
The fires were extinguished in about an hour. No one was injured.
Burns estimated the fires caused about $22,000 damage. All the fires were contained within the laundry rooms, most of which sustained only light damage and won’t need to be demolished.
Police hadn’t identified or arrested any suspects as of Sunday, Bryant said. He declined to discuss the details of how the fires were started.
Police haven’t found any connection among the incidents and high-profile arson cases in north Everett and Seattle, which put police on alert this summer, Bryant said.
Residents at the apartment complex were in disbelief on Sunday morning.
George Perkins, whose bedroom is located above one of the fire-damaged laundry rooms, said his wife smelled the smoke and woke him up about 4 a.m. He checked his apartment, but couldn’t tell where the smoke was coming from. Then Perkins saw firefighters outside apparently coping with another fire, he said.
“Hey, I’ve got mine! Please check this out. I have a 6-day-old baby,” Perkins shouted at the firefighters.
Perkins said he knocked on his neighbors’ doors to alert them to the fire.
Despite the smoke, the fire didn’t damage his apartment, Perkins said. But he will bring the baby, Geoshjoa, to a doctor to be checked for smoke inhalation just in case, he said.
“The worst part is our smoke alarm didn’t work,” he said.
Perkins’ neighbor, Darla Wait, who lives next to the laundry room, said she slept through the night without knowing of the fire.
About 9 a.m., Wait stood near the charred laundry room.
“I will definitely be moving,” she said.
The apartment complex, built in 1972, doesn’t have a sprinkler system, but has smoke alarms, said Jenna Nolan, the complex’s manager. Some alarms went off, she said, but she doesn’t know why others did not.
Nolan said she hadn’t received any threats about the incident or noticed any suspicious activities at the complex, she said.
Nolan added she will try to replace the 42 individual laundry rooms with a large building so that staff can keep an eye on it.
Nolan was relieved no one needed to be relocated, but added it could’ve been a lot worse.
“I think the person who set it has no regard for people’s lives,” she said.
Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@heraldnet.com.
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