Fatal fire may have started in mattress

As investigators focused on a possible cause of Saturday's fatal fire in a Fremont apartment, Seattle fire officials disclosed Monday that the first-arriving engine that failed to pump water was an older, backup model.

Investigators are examining whether the fire that swept through the apartment, killing a woman and four children, may have started when a mattress inside a closet accidentally came in contact with a light bulb, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.

The fire may have smoldered in the mattress and then exploded into flames after the closet door was opened, the sources said.

Fire Department spokeswoman Dana Vander Houwen declined to comment Monday on the cause of the fire, saying investigators are reviewing everything in the apartment. She said officials also are awaiting test results from the State Patrol crime laboratory.

"That information will be released when the investigation is complete," Vander Houwen said.

Fire officials said Monday they have no reason to believe the fire is suspicious.

The Fire Department, in a written statement, clarified that the first engine to arrive at the blaze — which suffered a mechanical failure and was unable to pump water — was a 1996 reserve engine assigned to Station 18 because the normal engine, a 2008 model, was in the shop for routine maintenance.

Fire officials said the reserve engine, stationed on Northwest Market Street, had been successfully tested that morning before the fire was reported at 10:04 a.m. The engine, Engine 81, was listed in dispatch records that day as Engine 18.

The department also confirmed that the engine at Station 9, closest to the apartment fire, was on a nonemergency call to a Wallingford retirement home when the blaze erupted.

Four people — Helen Gebregiorgis (Geb-beh-GEORGE-is) and her three children — lived in the apartment, according to Virginia Felton, spokeswoman for the Seattle Housing Authority, which owns the unit. Family members had gathered at the two-story home for a sleepover Friday night.

After the fire erupted on the first floor, Gebregiorgis, 31, grabbed her 5-year-old niece, Samarah Smith, and dashed outside, believing her younger sister was behind her with the other children. Instead, the sister and other youngsters apparently took refuge in an upstairs bathroom, Fire Chief Gregory Dean said Sunday.

Killed were Gebregiorgis' sons Joseph Gebregiorgis, 13, and Yaseen Shamam, 5, and daughter, Nisreen Shamam, 6; her sister, Eyerusalem Gebregiorgis, 22; and a 7-year-old niece, Nyella Smith.

Autopsies on the five victims were scheduled for Monday. It's unclear when their cause of death will be released.

John Drengenberg, consumer-safety director at Underwriters Laboratories, a product-safety certification organization outside Chicago, said mattresses long have been a source of fires in American homes.

Federal guidelines, established in 2007, mandate that all mattresses manufactured and sold in the United States must be resistant to open-flame sources, such as candles, matches and cigarette lighters. The old regulations, enacted in 1973, required that mattresses resist smoldering cigarettes, according to Underwriters Laboratories.

Older firetruck

In disclosing that the first arriving truck was a reserve engine, Fire Department spokeswoman Vander Houwen said those units are shifted from station to station, and generally are older vehicles with more wear. Maintenance records through 2009 for the 1996 fire engine, reviewed by The Seattle Times, show what appears to be routine maintenance and problems that likely would be associated with an older vehicle, such as a leaky air-conditioning system, oil leaks and loose panels.

The last maintenance check occurred in September to replace tires, the records show.

According to the department, the first engine arrived at the scene about four minutes after being dispatched, but the operator was not able to move a lever to activate the pump for the engine's 500-gallon water tank. Even though the apartment was billowing black smoke and flames when they arrived, the firefighters were unable to attack the fire until another truck arrived 2 ½ minutes later.

Fire officials have refused to speculate on whether the delay contributed to the loss of life.

In the written statement, officials said an independent expert and the engine's manufacturer, E-One of Ocala, Fla., will conduct an investigation into the failure. The Fire Department and the city's Fleets and Facilities Department, which maintains Engine 81, are cooperating in the investigation, the statement said.

The older engine has been taken out of service pending the investigation, the statement said.

Investigators initially will review maintenance and repair records for Engine 81 and nine other Seattle Fire Department engines that are the same model, the department said.

The Fire Department has 11 reserve engines, four reserve ladder trucks and seven reserve medic units used when front-line units undergo preventive maintenance and repairs, the department said.

The first engine on the scene of the fire was the reserve unit from Station 18, located at 1521 N.W. Market St., about 1.3 miles from the five-unit apartment where Gebregiorgis rented a two-story, three-bedroom unit.

On a service call

The closest engine to the fire would have rolled from Station 9, at 3829 Linden Ave. N., about eight-tenths of a mile from the scene.

However, department records show that engine was on a nonemergency call at University House Wallingford, a 146-bed residential retirement facility at North 44th Street and Stone Way North.

A spokesman for University House said an employee called 911 on behalf of a resident at about 9:45 a.m. Saturday, about 19 minutes before the fire was dispatched. Federal privacy laws prevented her from disclosing the nature of the problem, said Amanda Warren, marketing manager for Era Living, owner of University House.

However, based on the information provided by the facility, the 911 dispatcher classified the incident as a Code Yellow, or nonemergency aid call, in which the engine responds without sirens or lights.

A copy of the incident report documenting the circumstances of the call was not immediately available from the Fire Department.

Since 2005, the Fire Department has responded to 911 calls at the facility 486 times. Of those calls, 38 were classified as Code Yellow, according to dispatch information.

A Fire Department commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, said calls from such facilities have become an issue, since firefighters sometimes are called to simply help seniors get up because staff members apparently want to avoid liability.

"This was a very, very tragic event for, first and foremost, the family. It's an extraordinary tragedy. And for the community that they're a part of," Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said during a news conference Monday.

The mayor made midyear budget cuts to every city department Monday except the Fire Department. Because of the fatal fire, he said, the safety implications of any budget cut should be studied.

Seattle Times staff reporter Emily Heffter contributed to this report.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com