SEATTLE – Investigators are looking into the possibility that the man killed in an apartment fire in Seattle's Green Lake neighborhood Monday afternoon may have been smoking while on oxygen.
Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick says the fire broke out about 1:30 p.m. Monday in a seventh-floor unit at the 11-story Green Lake Plaza, low-income housing operated by the Seattle Housing Authority.
Residents reported what seemed like an explosion as the fire blew out the apartment's windows, sending thick smoke up the outside of the building.
Fitzpatrick says firefighters extinguished the fire in about half an hour and found the body of the occupant.
No one else was injured, but residents remained out of their apartments well into Monday night as engineers checked the safety of the building's life safety systems. The building has 129 studio and one-bedroom units.
The Housing Authority says there are strict rules about open flames in apartments where oxygen is used or stored.
"Well, it is strictly forbidden in our policies," said Virginia Felton, communications director of the authority.
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