Crews rescue man, fight 2-alarm fire in vacant First Hill apartment building

SEATTLE — Firefighters rescued a man in a vacant apartment building after a two-alarm fire there sent clouds of black smoke into Downtown Seattle.

The fire in the building off Ninth Avenue and Madison Street in Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood started just after 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Seattle Fire said 911 callers reported that flames were coming from the top floor of the four-story building.

As soon as firefighters arrived, they searched the building and found a man in his 20s on the top floor.

He was carried out of the building, treated by paramedics, and then taken to a hospital.

Crews found that the flames had spread through several areas of the building and burned through the roof.

Firefighters left the building because of worries that the building could collapse. They fought the fire from outside and used fire trucks’ aerial ladders to get water onto flames coming through the roof.

Shortly after 11 p.m., the roof began to cave in.

The building is in a busy area where there are hotels and is not far from Virginia Mason Hospital and medical buildings.

A viewer sent us video he took from his hotel room across the street from the building that shows how intense the fire was.

Investigators are looking into what caused the fire.

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