A number of house fires made it a heartbreaking Fourth of July for families now collecting what's left of their belongings.
Tacoma Fire shared photos of a house fire and a brush fire on its Twitter page with the message that fireworks are the suspected cause.
In the 9400 block of S Yakima Avenue, a fire at Howard Lilienfeld's house is still under investigation. It happened Tuesday.
Outside is charred and boarded up, inside the rooms have been reduced to ashes. The family's dog, Mumps, did not survive the fire.
"She was my emotional support having been deployed a number of times. Veterans need support sometimes," said Lilienfeld, an army veteran. "She was another piece of my family."
Lilienfeld said while a cause has not been determined at this point, he suspects fireworks because people were lighting them off in the neighborhood.
"From certain angles, it looks like a bomb kind of dropped on my house," said Lilienfeld.
Further north, fire investigators were able to determine fireworks sparked a large fire in Lake Stevens. According to the Snohomish County Fire Marshal's office, five homes were involved in an early morning fire on Thursday, The early estimate is that a million dollars worth of damage was done. No one was hurt.
There is not an official tally of fireworks-related fires yet, but from Lake Stevens to Tacoma, investigations are underway.
