SEATTLE, WA — Investigators are looking into whether the fire that swept through a Fremont neighborhood apartment, killing a woman and four children, may have started when a mattress inside a closet accidentally came in contact with a light bulb, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.
The sources say Saturday’s fire may have smoldered in the mattress and then exploded into flames when the closet door was opened.
Dana Vander Houwen, spokeswoman for the Seattle Fire Department, declined to comment Monday on the cause of the fire, saying investigators are reviewing everything in the apartment. She said officials also are awaiting test results from the State Patrol crime laboratory
“That information will be released when the investigation is complete,” Vander Houwen said of the cause of the fire.
Seattle Fire Chief Gregory Dean said during a news conference Sunday that the fire appears to be an accident.
Late Monday afternoon, the Fire Department released a written statement saying the first engine to arrive on the scene, which experienced a failure of its pump mode, was not a 2008 model as originally reported, but a 1996 model used as a reserve engine.
The older truck, Engine 81, was used by the crew of Engine 18 on Saturday as a replacement for their regular truck, which was undergoing routine maintenance.
The pump operator could not move a lever to activate the pumping mode for the engine’s 500-gallon tank, according to the Fire Department.
In the statement, officials said an independent expert and the engine’s manufacturer, E-One of Ocala, Florida, will conduct an investigation into the failure.
Engine 81 will not be used as the investigation gets underway, the statement said.
Another engine arrived at the scene 2 1/2 minutes later.
After the fire erupted, Helen Gebregiorgis, 31, who was renting the apartment, grabbed her 5-year-old niece, Samarah Smith, and dashed outside, believing the others were behind her. Gebregiorgis’ sister and four young children took refuge in an upstairs bathroom, Dean said on Sunday.
Killed were Gebregiorgis’ sons Joseph Gebregiorgis, 13, and Yaseen Shamam, 5, and daughter, Nisreen Shamam, 6; her sister, Eyerusalem Gebregiorgis, 22; and a 7-year-old niece, Nyella Smith.
Family members had gathered at Helen Gebregiorgis’ home for a sleepover Friday night after watching the movie “The Karate Kid” at a theater.
Daniel Gebregiorgis, Helen Gebregiorgis’ brother, declined to comment Monday on what happened inside the home. He said the incident is under investigation.
Autopsies on the five victims were being performed Monday. It’s unclear when their cause of death will be released.
John Drengenberg, consumer safety director at Underwriters Laboratories, a product safety certification organization outside Chicago, said that mattresses have long been a source of fires in American homes.
Federal guidelines, established in 2007, mandate that all mattresses manufactured and sold in the U.S. must be resistant to open flame sources, such as candles, matches and cigarette lighters. The old regulations, enacted in 1973, required that mattresses resist smoldering cigarettes, according to Underwriters Laboratories.
A mattress that does not have the flame-protective barrier required in all new beds could go from smoldering to a full blaze in about four minutes, Drengenberg said. Once a flame erupt, the results could be catastrophic, he added.
“It would be a fire that would get so hot that everything in the room ignites almost immediately,” Drengenberg said.
During a news conference on Monday, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn described meeting Helen Gebregiorgis at Harborview Medical Center after the fire.
“This was a very very tragic event for, first and foremost, the family. It’s an extraordinary tragedy. And for the community that they’re a part of,” McGinn said. .
The mayor made midyear budget cuts to every city department on Monday except the Fire Department. He said that because of the fatal fire, the safety implications of any budget cut should be studied.
(By Jennifer Sullivan | Seattle Times. Staff reporters Steve Miletich and Emily Heffter contributed to this report.)