In the past several years, we (the Skyline retirement community; The Terraces is its Skilled Nursing, Memory Care, and Assisted Living branch) have had four big fires along Ninth Ave, #2 just across Cherry Street from the Terraces. Google Maps image from 2022 along Ninth Avenue from James Street to Spring Street (1018 Ninth Avenue was #3; both wings have now been demolished). Fires #1, #4 were at 823 Madison (right of center; seen before fires).
Fire #1. Looking north from our 26th floor on July 13, 2022. Wind out of SE.
Fire #2. Looking South from our 26th floor; Ninth & James Street is at upper left; bottom-center shows the Cherry Street uphill. That’s the 11th-floor roof of the Terraces at lower left. This fire next door, in December 2, 2022, is in that old grey building that remains across Cherry Street from us, a continuing hazard that the city seems unable to tear down. It was apparently the second fire there. Here the wind is from the SE; the prevailing winds from the SW would carry heat, fumes, and flames across Cherry toward the vulnerable populations in the Terraces.
Fire #3 in the vacant apartment building at Ninth & Spring Street, 2023. The congested intersection is Ninth and Madison Street. Below is the Street-View image of the vacated building.
1018 9th Avenue, vacant when the south wing burned in the summer of 2023. Both wings were demolished in late 2023. Exterior paint is not a good guide to habitability.
Fire #4. After the 2022 fire, repairs were made to 823 Madison; some East wing repairs survived the 2024 fire. BELOW: A month later, demolition has given us a view of Madison Street.
All four fires seem to be in buildings a century old, walk-up flats from the era before elevators and sprinklers. There are more such old buildings in our vicinity; 801 Ninth Avenue (NW corner of Ninth and Columbia; the city’s housing for senior homeless men) is not one of them, having been built at the same time as Skyline in 2006-2009. In aerial photos such as the top figure, four-story buildings without a stairwell housing on the roof (say, 804 James, west of #2 fire) would be worth further analysis. Homeless people trying to heat and cook in these buildings shows how inadequate Seattle’s provisions have been for inspection, patrol, and alternative housing.
One example of the risk to Skyline from a fire upwind of the Terraces:
I intend this only as a fact sheet, not a project proposal that I can help with (climate commitments).
