A Kitsap County Sheriff’s deputy evacuated seven people from a house fire on the 1600 block of SE Holman Road early Tuesday.
Deputy Ben Herrin was on routine patrol shortly after 5 a.m. when he saw smoke, according to Deputy Scott Wilson, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office.
Herrin, an 18-year veteran of the office, woke up the residents of the burning home and helped them evacuate, including one person with disabilities.
South Kitsap Fire and Rescue Deputy Chief Guy Dalrymple said firefighters had the fire under control in about 20 minutes and hot spots were extinguished within the following hour.
The fire likely was caused by a heating lamp, which ignited a homemade greenhouse on the home's deck, according to Kitsap County Deputy Fire Marshal Kristi Wlodarchak. Seven duck chicks were killed.
The home only had one working smoke alarm, which residents said they didn't hear, Wlodarchak said. Similar heating lamps have caused several other fires in the county, she said.
“The deputy (Herrin), he was on his game,” Dalrymple said, because the fire was not easily spotted from the road.
Herrin was named Kitsap County's Deputy Sheriff of the Year in 2014. He also received the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office Medal of Valor in 2014 and Washington State Medal of Honor in 2015 for his actions in an incident on Dec. 31, 2013, in which he and another deputy exchanged gunfire with a man later convicted of assault and kidnapping.
South Kitsap Fire and Rescue’s chaplain services provided interim lodging and clothing to the family displaced by the fire, and the Red Cross will provide housing until the home is repaired.
