Sparklers likely started Bremerton apartment fire
Kitsap Sun (Bremerton, WA)
July 18--BREMERTON, WA -- A mother and kids lighting sparklers on a third-floor balcony started a fast-spreading apartment fire Saturday morning that cost 12 people their homes.
Bremerton Fire Marshall Mike Six found four sparklers on the balcony of the complex at 321 Wycoff Ave., which caught fire around 8 a.m. He spoke to the 24-year-old resident who said she lit two sparklers with her children, ages 3 and 4. After the fireworks burned out, she placed them in a metal ashtray on the railing.
She went inside to bathe one of the kids and came back 10 minutes later to find the balcony ablaze, the sliding glass door shattered by heat and flames lapping inside, Six said.
In a Bremerton Police Department investigation, one officer said he was told that the woman and her children were lighting sparklers just before the fire started. Another was told that the children had been playing with sparklers.
Nobody was seriously injured in the dramatic fire, which could be seen for miles. A 77-year-old woman was taken to Harrison Medical Center with a minor leg injury after dropping about 20 feet from her deck to escape the flames. Bremerton police officers Kelly Meade and J.D. Miller and Navy Region Northwest firefighter Nick Pendergrass, who lives across the street, broke her fall.
"They rescued her from an exterior vantage point that was reasonably safe, but it's a good thing they did because she wouldn't have survived the event," Six said.
Even after escaping the fire, the woman's back was too hot to touch, said a Bremerton policeman.
Eleven other occupants, including six children, got out of the six-unit complex safety, though many lost all of their belongings. None had renter's insurance, according to Bremerton Fire Chief Al Duke.
The police and fire department reports are being forwarded to the Kitsap County Prosecutor's Office for review.