A fire in the back of a duplex near Bellingham damaged two homes and displaced four people Saturday evening, Dec. 5, 2015.
A resident in one of the units, a woman, called 911 around 4:50 p.m. to report a smell of smoke in her home at 3508 Bennett Drive, a rambler that had been converted into two homes, said Bellingham Assistant Fire Chief Bill Hewett.
Around the same time a passerby saw flames coming from the back of the home.
The woman was the only person home at the time. She wasn’t hurt. She lives there with her husband, Hewett said, and two young women live in the smaller adjacent apartment. They weren’t home, either.
Firefighters arrived in about five minutes to find heavy smoke and flames coming from a 15-by-15-foot shed that’s attached to the other unit, a converted garage. The flames spread to a window and inside, causing heat and smoke damage to the women’s unit, and smoke damage to the other.
The shed was destroyed by flames.
Bennett Drive was shut down while firefighters from Whatcom County Fire District 8 and the Bellingham Fire Department extinguished the flames.
The rambler, owned by Lighthouse Single Rentals LLC, has an assessed value of about $94,000. A damage estimate wasn’t available Saturday.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation by the county fire marshal’s office