Local News

Onlookers check out the homes hit by a fire in Seattle’s Lower Queen Anne neighborhood about 8 p.m. Monday. The middle home was destroyed by the blaze while the two adjacent homes sustained less damage. The two-alarm fire started in a detached garage behind the home in the center, according to Seattle Fire. (Photo by Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

UPDATE: 11:35 a.m. | The Seattle Fire Department says the fire that destroyed a Lower Queen Anne home and burned two adjacent homes was set and not accidental.

Fire officials say the fire started in a doorless garage, which was filled with combustibles including trash and an old Christmas tree. The fire is being investigated by the Seattle Police Department’s Arson and Bomb Squad. It’s unclear if the fire was set as “a crime of opportunity” or if the residences were targeted, said fire spokesman Kyle Moore.

The home that was destroyed was a “charred shell,” and the two homes on either side  “suffered significant damage” in the fire that erupted about 8 p.m. Monday. The initial damage estimate is $560,000 for the three structures, along with $55,000 damage to the contents.

It took 78 firefighters and 16 fire trucks to fight the blaze, which was extinguished by about 10 p.m., said Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore. At least 10 people and a dog were displaced by the fire. The Red Cross was working to find them a place to stay, Moore said.

The homes are in the 700 block of Warren Avenue North, just about a block north of the Seattle Center.

The fire is under investigation, and it appears to have started in a garage at the back of the middle house, said Moore.

Two people suffered minor injuries: A man hurt his ankle running out of his burning home. The other injury, said Moore, happened after a guy, who had been at a nearby bar, decided “to run up the street to fight the fire.” He injured his hands, although not enough to require medical attention.

Residents, family members and others gather to salvage possessions from the home that was destroyed by the fire. The home at left and the home on the right were also burned. (Photo by Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

Tim Shields rented the lower unit in the duplex.

“I was hanging out with two friends, and one of them says, ‘Is that like a fire or something?’ We saw an orange glow through the shades. The garage was completely engulfed,” he said.

Shields, a copywriter for a marketing company who now is staying with friends, said he doesn’t know what of his possessions he’ll find when he returns to his former home.

An avid diary-keeper who had chronicled his life and world travels since age 17 in 1991, he had filled over 45 diaries.

All he managed to get out with were his wallet, cell phone, computer and two guitars.

Shields said he hadn’t played guitar for a while.

“I guess I’ll start playing guitar again,” he said.

KING 5 News was named “Large Market Station of the Year” in the 2013 National Press Photographers Association “Best of Photojournalism” contest.

It beat out five other finalists that included stations in such cities as Minneapolis and Denver. KING 5 also won the honor in 2011.

Judge Seth Voorhees said about the station’s entry:

“Everything was solid, spectacular, the stories had the most complexity. It was unbelievable, to pull it off and make it that good was amazing. There were a lot of different reporters and the quality didn’t drop off.”

The station’s entry included stories that ranged from “Bystanders taken down robbery suspect” to “Tourists peeved over small Pike Place Market bathrooms.”

The Associated Press

One of usually peaceful springtime rituals of childhood — the Easter egg hunt — turned nasty at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

Blame the moms.

A statement on the Seattle Police Department blotter Monday says the “hard-boiled tale” began Sunday afternoon, “when one woman reportedly pushed a child aside as her own child was scrambling toward some brightly colored eggs.”

Police say the two mothers began fighting and had to be separated three or four times. The fisticuffs left one woman with a bloody nose.

Only one mother was still there when officers arrived. She said she wasn’t interested in pursuing charges against her attacker.

As the release puts it, that left officers without “any info that could crack the case.”

The victim of a stabbing is comforted at Third Avenue and Pine Street in downtown Seattle Monday afternoon. (Michael Barkin)

A man in his 20s was taken to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition Monday afternoon after he was stabbed numerous times near Third Avenue and Pine Street.

Seattle Police said the stabbing, which happened about 4:25 p.m., “does not appear to be random,” and that the victim may have known the suspect.

According to police, “two uniformed officers were sitting in a fully-marked police car just east of the intersection of 3rd Avenue and Pine Street” when they saw the victim and the suspect yell at each other, “squaring off to fight.”

The police used their car’s public address system to tell the two “to cease and move along.”

The two men then walked around the corner, and moments later, said police, a witness ran up to the officers to tell them someone had been stabbed in front of the McDonald’s.

The two officers said the victim was bleeding from his arm and gave him first-aid until medics arrived, who determined the man had been stabbed multiple times.

Police said the suspect fled on foot and officers couldn’t catch him because of pedestrian and car rush-hour, and “the chaotic scene on the sidewalk.”

The police Gang Unit is investigating.

The photo of the victim was taken by Michael Barkin, a media coordinator at Corbis Images, who happened to be near the scene.

The suspect is still at large, said police, and described him as a thin male with medium skin tone, 20 to 25 years old, 5-foot, 9-inches tall, and last seen wearing a black baseball hat with red insignia, a red shirt, brown hooded sweater with block lettering and black pants.

Police said anyone with information about this incident or who may know the identity or whereabouts of the suspect is asked to call 911 or Seattle Police and refer to this incident.

Anonymous tips are welcome, said police.

Ira Mehlman

President Obama and a bipartisan group of senators are calling for an overhaul of the nation’s controversial immigration system.  We invited three experts from Washington state with very different perspectives on the issue to join us in an online conversation with readers.

The moderator will be veteran reporter Lornet Turnbull, who joined The Seattle Times in 2004 and has covered a variety of social issues, including immigration, demographics and same-sex marriage.

Ira Mehlman is national media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a national public interest organization that supports more controlled immigration and enforcement of current immigration laws.

Mike Gempler

Jorge L. Barón

Jorge L. Barón is executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in Seattle, a nonprofit organization that provides comprehensive immigration legal services to low-income individuals and families across Washington State.

Mike Gempler is executive director of the Washington Growers League in Yakima, an industry organization that provides services and advocates for growers on labor and employment issues.

A 27-year-old man died and two others were injured Friday night in a four-car collision on state Route 9 near Lake Stevens.

Washington State Patrol reports Tyler Martel was nearing state Route 204 when he passed another northbound vehicle. Crossing the centerline, he struck a vehicle head-on and then hit two other cars.

Martel died.

His passenger and another driver were transported to Harborview Medical Center with injuries.

Update:  A 30-year-old man suspected of robbing a North Seattle bank claimed he was carrying an explosive device. Police say it was later determined to be fake, designed to look like a pipe bomb.

The King County Sheriff’s Office bomb squad is investigating an accident scene near the Edmonds ferry dock after a suspected bank robbery rolled his SUV as he attempted to elude police.

The man, claiming he had an explosive device, robbed a Wells Fargo bank branch at the 13200 block of Aurora Avenue North.

Upon fleeing the bank, the suspect carjacked a man and who drove him to 143^rd Street and Meridian Avenue, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office. The suspect then got out of the victim’s truck and jumped into a gold SUV.  Police spotted him and a chase ensued.

The man lost control of his car, rolling it near the Edmonds dock where he was arrested, said King County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Cindi West.

It was June 1947 when Kenneth Arnold, a businessman and amateur pilot from Boise, reported seeing nine unidentified discs circling Mount Rainier as if each were a “saucer skipping across the water.”

It was Arnold’s account, widely replayed over the years, that helped coin the term “flying saucer.”

Now a New York-based production company for the Travel Channel is working on a reenactment of Arnold’s famous flight, which originated from the Chehalis Airport, according to The Chronicle newspaper.

The scenes will be used for the Travel Channel’s show “Monumental Mysteries.”

Before shooting scenes in Chehalis, the film crew went to Oakville on Tuesday to reenact scenes from August 1994, when mysterious green blobs reportedly fell from the sky, the newspaper reported.

The segments are scheduled to air on the Travel Channel in April.

Photo by Jim Bates/The Seattle Times

The breakdown of a ferry on the Seattle-Bremerton run could pose a problem for fans trying to get to Sunday’s Seahawks game.

Washington State Ferries spokeswoman Susan Harris tells the Associated Press that while the Sealth is out of service, a smaller ferry with a capacity of about 700 people has been called in as a replacement. That ferry is scheduled to make the 9:45 run from Bremerton to Seattle tomorrow morning, and that’s the one people should try to avoid.

Harris says Seahawks fans should take the 8:45 a.m. or 11:10 a.m. sailings from Bremerton instead, because those will be served by a bigger boat.

The Seahawks play the Arizona Cardinals at 1:25 p.m.

With marijuana now legal in Washington, the state’s neighbors are wondering how it will impact them.

Portland police have issued an advisory saying that while it’s legal to go to Washington to smoke weed, those who drive back to Oregon stoned run the risk of getting pulled over for driving under the influence, The Associated Press reports.

The same holds true in Washington, of course: You can be cited for DUI if caught driving while stoned.

In Idaho, law officials already have their hands full with Idahoans obtaining medical marijuana cards out of state. There is some concern in Idaho that more Idahoans will be crossing into Washington to smoke pot or bring it back across statelines, although it is too early to tell how much of a problem it could become.

Officials in Canada are also watching how Washington state’s new law develops.