EVERETT – Sometimes it pays to live close to a fire station.

That was the case Friday morning when Everett firefighters spotted what they thought was a house on fire before anyone even called it in.

Firefighters say it happened like this:

The house at 1331 112th St. is just a couple of doors away from Fire Station No. 7. About 7:30 a.m., firefighters were changing shifts. Capt. Kyle Griffith was leaving the station to go home and he saw smoke coming from a neighboring house.

Griffith then went back into the station and told the crew.

“I think there’s a house on fire across the street,” Griffith said.

He suggested that maybe they go and “put it out.”

Because the firefighters were able to arrive so quickly, much of the house, a rental, was salvaged.

Fire damage was contained to one or two rooms and the attic.

The house was occupied at the time, but no one was injured.

Everett Fire Capt. Jeff Edmonds said that if the house had been somewhere else, it would have sustained much more damage.

Afterward, Edmonds and driver Oden Olson talked about the fire outside the house while they cleaned the chain saws they used in battling the fire.

“It’s not very often we show up on a house fire before it’s called in,” Edmonds said.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation.

(Dan Bates / The Herald

Everett Fire Department Capt. Jeff Edmonds (left) and driver Oden Olson of Fire Station No. 7 chat Friday after putting out flames at a house across the street from the station near Silver Lake.