Updated: Fire crews rushed to a boat fire under the Ballard Bridge last night.
The call came in at 10 p.m. of smoke near the south end of the bridge. As you can see from these amazing photos by My Ballard reader Rob Senita, firefighters arrived on scene to find a 25-30 foot boat heavily involved in flames.
Firefighters navigated the dock and knocked down the flames quickly, but they spent another 45 minutes working to put out the hot spots.
A man in his 40’s who appears to be the boat’s owner was found an hour later wandering several docks away, according to a Seattle Fire spokesperson. He was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation. The injuries are not life-threatening. Investigators are still on scene this morning.
12:15 p.m. update: Dana Vander Houwen, spokeswoman for the Seattle Fire Department, says that investigators believe the accidental fire was caused by combustible material being placed too close to a portable space heater. The damage estimate is $31,500.
(Thanks Rob for the photos and Silver and Amy for the tips!)
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Your Welcome for the Photos.. I'm looking to see if I have anymore that can be used. if I had had my normal camera these would have turned out better then the ones from my cell phone.
On our way home we drove right past the scene last night as the fire trucks were rushing to the fire. All we could see as we drove over the bridge was the huge plume of black smoke. Thanks for the photos and letting us know what was going on. I'm glad no one was hurt.
I can't help but wonder if the recent spate of boat fires is a bit more than accidental. The NY Times and even KUOW had recent pieces on owners abandoning or scuttling their boats as maintenance, insurance, and mooring fees became too much in the current economic climate. I'm not pointing any fingers, just thinking out loud.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/01bo…
http://kuow.org/program.php?id=17272
Has there been a recent spate of boat fires? I haven't been good at keeping up with local news lately. The use of the word “wandering” to describe what the owner of the boat was doing had made my husband and I wonder if the owner had been drinking heavily, but we decided to not pass judgment based on just the choice of wording unless we heard more information.
I think most likely the economic downturn has more people living on old boats and that's the cause of some fires. Most people can't get full insurance coverage on a boat over 20 years old so I doubt many boat fires are insurance fraud.
As for the guy found “wandering”, how would you feel if your home had just burned and you'd just escaped with your life after inhaling toxic smoke of a boat fire? That's a wee bit more potent than a little booze.
those space heaters are scary, especially on a boat. i am so happy that the man was OK. i have alot of friends who live in Sagstad marina and was scared to think it might be one of them when i saw all the smoke.(from a distance i could not tell exactly where it was coming from…) a happy ending….well, except for the poor guy is out of a home now i suppose…..i hope all ends well with this story.
Thanks for posting the photos.