LYNNWOOD — Flames tore through the top two floors of a Lynnwood apartment building May 12, burning through the roof, blackening the walls and displacing 31 people.
The fire started on a second floor balcony, investigators say, after a resident apparently tried to put out a cigarette in a cardboard box.
As the flames spread, two neighbors went into the apartment and attempted to douse the blaze with fire extinguishers.
“The curtains were closed, but the fire was like the sun shining brighter than you’d ever seen it. It was just like a glow. The whole room was orange,” said Gerauld Tuggle, 22, who used two fire extinguishers he’d grabbed from the building’s stairwell.
The two men gave up when the apartment’s sliding glass door began to shatter from the heat, said Tuggle, who lives on the building’s first floor.
In the meantime, others pounded on doors to wake up sleeping neighbors at the Twin Firs apartments. Everyone escaped safely from the two-alarm fire, reported about 12:40 a.m. May 12.
“When people banged on the door and yelled ‘Fire!’ I didn’t believe it at first,” said Darlene Monterroso, 38, who fled barefoot with her husband and pet Chihuahua, Pinto Bean. “(But) I’m so glad they did. I smelled nothing; I heard nothing” before that.
When she stepped outside, “there were big, high, tall flames and smoke everywhere.”
In the rush, she left behind her wedding ring. Firefighters later found it among the rubble, covered in so much soot she couldn’t see the diamond. She finally got her shoes back, too, also blackened from the blaze.
Her husband’s wallet fared better, emerging with just its edges charred. Money, residency papers, and the driver’s license tucked inside were intact, said Jose Monterroso, senior pastor at the Foursquare Church in Lynnwood.
Others weren’t as lucky. The blaze destroyed five units, and several more apartments in the 12-unit complex suffered heavy smoke and water damage, said Snohomish County Fire District 1 spokeswoman Leslie Hynes.
Water was still dripping from the building as residents were briefly allowed back into their homes that afternoon.
Searching for anything they could salvage, residents filled plastic bags with smoky clothing, bedding and other belongings.
Jacob Knapp, 21, was surprised to find that almost everything inside the apartment he shares with Tuggle was undamaged. He’d left the apartment with just two expensive rugs they’d recently hung on the wall.
“It went up so fast. It looked like a rocket hit the building,” he said.
About an hour before the fire began in the second-floor apartment, Tuggle, who performs maintenance at the complex, said he saw the man smoking on the balcony.
“He always smoked on his deck, not in his house,” Tuggle said. “I guess he doesn’t have to worry about that now. His walls are black.”
The Twin Firs manager said she didn’t know yet what would happen to the fire-damaged building, but said many of the residents will move into other units at the complex.
The American Red Cross and Support 7 also assisted those who were displaced by the fire.
In addition, Carmen Keita, 41, who lives in the building next to the one that caught fire, welcomed her neighbors into her home, handing out coffee, water and even her own clothes and shoes.
Keita, who’d met few of her neighbors in the month-and-a-half since she moved here from Federal Way, said she was touched by how well the residents cared for each other.
“Even in the midst of chaos, people opened their hearts,” said Keita, who’d volunteered for the Red Cross in Federal Way and plans to join the Snohomish County chapter. “It was like a little community in here.”
After residents get settled in their new homes, they plan to get together again, she said. But next time, the only fire will be in the barbecue.
Katherine Schiffner is a reporter for the Herald in Everett.
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