A 2021 fire at the Quinalt Apartments

More than half of Capitol Hill residents live in apartments but many of the lessons we’ve learned about fire safety have been focused on single family style homes.

To address apartment fire safety tips for Seattle’s growing population of apartment dwellers, the Seattle Fire Department is sharing lessons and learnings for the multifamily population.

SFD has seen steady numbers of multifamily building fires in the past two years — around 350 to 400 multi-residential fires a year.

William Mace, an education and outreach advisor at SFD, says the top four biggest causes of Seattle apartment building fires are unattended cooking, heaters, electrical appliances, and candles.

Mace wants to make sure the message is clear to Seattle apartment residents that fire doors must stay closed regardless of hot weather. He attributes the “chimney effect” as one of the major causes of disaster during the New York Bronx apartment fire on Jan. 9, killing 19 people, including nine children.

“When there is a big event somewhere in the country, a major fire, where a lot of people die, people start asking questions and they want to know for obvious reasons what they should do in that situation,” he said.

“We wanted to understand what happened, so that we could share that with folks because we knew it would lead to questions,” Mace said. Caused by a space heater malfunctioning, the Bronx apartment fire became worse because fire doors were not properly closed, Mace said.

The danger can increase in summer — and not just because of warm temperatures. Hot weather means some apartment residents leave fire doors open when their building is too warm, Mace said. “Fire doors are meant to contain smoke from entering the stairwell. If those doors are open, smoke will enter, and it will become a chimney effect,” he said.

Mace said learning more about sheltering in place is also important for Seattle apartment residents including making sure to listen to Seattle Fire before exiting or entering an apartment building during a fire event.

One of the most dangerous issues is smoking, especially in high-rise apartment buildings in prohibited areas. “Apartments may not allow cigarettes but our investigators will often find cigarette buds in planter boxes or somewhere else that is another cause of fire,” Mace said.

There is also some good news in the information.

SFD thought there would be an increase of fires throughout the pandemic due to more home cooking and fewer people dining out, Mace said. “We saw a lot [of fires], but not what we thought, it wasn’t much of an increase.”

There is also a surprising danger lurking in your apartment building,

The most common cause of Seattle apartment fires? Dinner. Specified as “food on the stove” fires, this is the most consistent cause of Seattle apartment fires over the past ten years, Mace said.

Mace has five kitchen fire safety tips for Capitol Hill apartment residents: pay attention when cooking; if there is cooking smoke and not a fire, do not open the front door and set off the whole building alarm; have a plan to know where to go; know if the apartment building has a monitored alarm system and don’t disable smoke alarms.

“Put yourself in a safe place before calling 911. Don’t call 911 inside of a house or apartment that’s on fire, we want you to get out first and then call 911,” Mace said.

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