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.