JEFFERSON COUNTY, Wash. — Jefferson County fire crews are responding to a fire on Protection Island, a designated seabird sanctuary with one resident.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office posted two pictures of a large smoke plume rising from the island that's visible from across the water. The agency asked residents to stop calling 911 to report the fire, saying they are being inundated with calls.
Protection Island is a "crucial site" and one of the last remaining undeveloped habitats for burrow-nesting seabirds in the Salish Sea, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is a nesting site for 70% of Washington’s Salish Sea population of breeding seabirds and is one of two remaining breeding sites for tufted puffins in the Salish Sea.
The island is closed to visitors to protect the habitat.
Marty Bluewater is the only person who lives on the island.
Bluewater, a former business manager at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, said he was grandfathered in to keep living on the island when the former private development his home was on turned into the present-day wildlife refuge.