Discarded cigarette butts in a planter sparked a fire at a SeaTac apartment building early Wednesday, officials said.
The incident unfolded just before 2 a.m. when a resident at the Willow Lake Apartments spotted flames on the ground floor deck of a neighboring apartment.
The resident called 911 and then ran across the courtyard and pounded on the door of the neighbor's apartment, waking up the woman who lives there.
As firefighters responded to the apartments, in the 3000 block of South 208th Street, the neighbor and the woman attacked the blaze with multiple fire extinguishers. Their quick actions prevented the flames from spreading to the inside of the building, said Deputy Fire Marshal Keith Kepler of the Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority.
After fire crews arrived on scene, they finished extinguishing the blaze.