Man who died in fire at Green Lake public-housing building is identified

A 71-year-old man was killed and 14 other residents were displaced from their homes after fire broke out Monday at a low-income housing building at Green Lake.

The man who died was identified Tuesday morning as Alphonso Goldwire, who lived in a seventh-floor apartment of Green Lake Plaza at 505 N.E. 70th St., east of Green Lake.

Other residents, who had been evacuated from the sixth, seventh and eighth floors, spent the night at the Greenlake Community Center, said Virginia Felton, spokeswoman for the Seattle Housing Authority, which operates the building.

She said the Seattle Fire Department told her the fire had been caused by the victim, who was using oxygen and had been smoking.

There were no other injuries. Damage was estimated at between $225,000 and $300,000.

The displaced residents were not permitted to return to their apartments Tuesday because of electrical problems in their units, according to a news release on Seattle Housing Authority's Web site. It is expected they will be allowed to return to their homes by this weekend, according to the release.

The fire apparently broke out just before 1:30 p.m. Monday on the seventh-floor unit of the 11-floor building. Windows blew out of the unit where the fire is believed to have started, and smoke and flames were pouring out as firefighters arrived. They extinguished the fire in about 30 minutes.

Reports that there was no fire alarm in the building were incorrect, said Felton, though many residents were alerted to the fire when others banged on their doors. "The alarms were audible and flashing, and they worked as they were supposed to," said Felton, who added that she is baffled by reports that the alarms weren't working.

Felton said the 39-year-old cinderblock building has no sprinkler systems because it was built before city codes required them. All of the building's studio and one-bedroom apartments are cinderblock or concrete, she said, and typically, with that kind of construction, fires don't spread.

That's what happened in this case, she said. "It didn't go substantially beyond that apartment."

Felton also said that to retrofit all SHA buildings without sprinklers — about 22 — would cost more than $1 million, while the housing authority receives just $10 million a year from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development for all 5,200 units of public housing SHA administers.

The Green Lake building is home to low-income residents, but not all are elderly or disabled, Felton said.

Kathryn Hyde, a volunteer home-care worker, said she had come to Green Lake Plaza to visit the man who died in the fire. She went to his unit and saw flames and smoke.

"It happened so fast," Hyde said.

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com