SEATTLE — Just three days into the New Year, Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins says the fire department has had a busy start to 2024 due to vacant building fires.
Two of those fires were in large vacant buildings. One was near Northgate on Tuesday and the other was on New Year's Day in Seattle's First Hill Neighborhood. It was a massive fire that caused significant damage to surrounding buildings.
"[They are] very challenging structure fires in these vacant, derelict, dangerous buildings," said Scoggins.
The fire department said trespassers caused smaller fires there before. "That's really important to note because that's generally going to lead up to a bigger event happening," said Scoggins.
Chief Scoggins said those smaller fires made the structure unstable, creating more difficult firefighting conditions for the fire that broke out on New Year's Day.
"We're seeing a clear uptick in these types of fires in the community that are challenging our firefighters," said Scoggins.
In 2021, there were 25 vacant building fires and that number went up to 42 last year, which is a nearly 70 percent increase. A city ordinance passed in October puts more responsibility on building owners to ensure people can't get into vacant buildings.
The city said it gets about 700 complaints about vacant buildings per year.
"That ordinance does a lot but what we need is owners to take responsibility for their structures," said Scoggins.
The city was already concerned about the building that caught fire two days ago. They issued the owner a citation three months ago for not keeping it properly locked. That building is now slated for emergency demolition.
"Our standard can keep a lot of people out, but a determined trespasser can get in," said Faith Lumsden who is the Director of Code Compliance with the SDCI.
City leaders say the most problematic vacant buildings have to go.
"We need to make sure that vacant buildings that have a permit in process to be demolished get demolished. We will at some point be looking at the process by which the department decides when that permit comes out. But I am absolutely concerned by this," said Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson.
Like the fire department, the city is also seeing an increase in overall vacant buildings and said ultimately this is private property and responsibility falls on the owners.