A flare-up of vacant building fires in Seattle — some deadly

The city is fielding more complaints about vacant residential and commercial buildings than ever before – and watching a growing number of those buildings go up in flames.

Seattle averaged about one vacant building each week by mid-July, a rate one-third higher than last year. Some fires investigators have deemed arson. Others were determined to be accidental, or have no known cause.

In south Seattle, neighbors have watched one abandoned building after another burn on Rainier Avenue South, beginning with Borracchini’s Bakery, a Rainier Valley landmark that stood in the same location from 1939 until the pandemic devastated its cake business.

Borracchini’s closed in late 2020, said owner Nannette Heye, then burned in May 2022.

“It does break my heart," Heye said. "Worse yet was telling my dad that news that it burned down, because that was his whole life. So that was really sad for him."

Three more vacant buildings along one mile of the same road burned in the coming months: a Burger King, then a 7-11, and this April, an abandoned auto shop where firefighters found a man dead inside. There was drug paraphernalia next to him.

The man's cause of death was later determined to be smoke inhalation from the fire.

A police report said the owner had struggled to keep people from sneaking into the building. That’s a critical safety issue, said Faith Lumsden, who oversees code compliance for the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection.

“Every few months, we run into properties that just are real havens for people who need a place to sleep, or do whatever else they're doing," Lumsden said.

Owners of vacant buildings are required to maintain them and secure them against trespass — or get fined $542 a month.

Although the city does not have a comprehensive list of vacant buildings, an ordinance that took effect in 2019 requires developers to add vacant buildings planned for redevelopment to the city's monitoring list for three months. At that point, the buildings come off the list if they have had no violations, like unsecured properties or trash piles.

Citizens can also ask to have nuisance buildings added to the list. Last year, the city fielded about 700 such complaints — twice as many as in 2015, Lumsden said. She attributed the increase in part to the city's real estate boom and zoning changes.

“Typically, they're in a development process, where the building will be knocked down and replaced with something — offices, or mixed use, or residential redevelopment," Lumsden said.

Other vacant buildings land on the monitoring list after the fire department tips off her department, Lumsden said. Building inspectors and the fire department also share notes on which buildings are occupied illegally, a growing problem given the huge number of unhoused people seeking shelter in recent years.

Vacant building fires can also hit low-income people hardest. They are especially likely to live near vacant commercial buildings, such as the many low-income housing units, supportive housing, and youth shelter that stand near the Rainier Avenue South buildings that burned.

In the early morning of July 20, a fire tore into a century-old brick building in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District that previously held a produce store and a nail salon supply shop. The building was currently vacant, slated for demolition and redevelopment into an eight-story residential building.

As firefighters doused the flames, the city shut off power to buildings in the area to prevent igniting a gas line. A resident of one of the buildings that lost power, Thai Binh apartments, said she and her neighbors in the low-income units navigated pitch-black hallways to reach the acrid smoke-filled street.

“I'm a diesel mechanic, and I'm a tough girl. But I don't like the dark," said the resident, who requested not to be named for privacy reasons. Descending the dark staircase was terrifying, she added.

"Luckily, one of the maintenance people was there, and helped me with a flashlight. I just wanted out. I freaked out.”

Adding to the confusion, the smoke alarms sounded test signals when the generator kicked in — so a lot of residents thought the fire was in their building, she said.

At the city, Faith Lumsden said it’s important for vacant property owners to do whatever they can to not only secure their property, but keep it inhabited or at least not obviously vacant. That can mean plexiglass over the windows instead of boarding them up, and hosting pop-up events at commercial buildings in lieu of having permanent tenants.

Borracchini’s Bakery appeared to be well-secured, fire officials say. They weren’t able to determine what caused the fire.

Owner Nannette Heye suspects arson.

“It's just rampant. I hope they can find some resolve to this because it's ruining the area.”

Three days after the former produce store burned in the International District, a fire tore into the boarded-up Jet City Improv theater in the University District.

A 58-year-old woman died in the blaze. Police said the fire is under investigation.