All in a Day: KFD Battles Two Apartment Fires and Rescues Trapped Ducklings

Kirkland Firefighters were busy Sunday and early Monday morning, responding to two non-injury apartment fires and also rescuing more than a dozen ducklings trapped in a storm drain as a crowd -- and the mother duck -- looked on.

“One of the best things about the job is you never know what the day will bring,” said a report about the duck rescue on the Kirkland Firefighters Facebook page.

The ducklings were rescued in the 8700 block of NE 145 Street on Finn Hill after apparently falling through the large mesh grate of square storm drain cover. Firefighters opened the cover, dropped into the drain and rescued more than 15 ducklings, as a gathering crowd and the mother duck looked on.

Then Kirkland Firefighters on Sunday at about 7 p.m. assisted more than a dozen Bellevue Fire Department units battle a blaze at an apartment complex along Bellevue Way SE, south of downtown Bellevue. Arriving crews found heavy smoke and flames at the building’s third floor, but rapidly checked its spread. No injuries were reported, but four apartment units suffered smoke and water damage.

Later on Sunday night and Monday morning beginning at about midnight, Kirkland Fire Department crews responded to a fire at an apartment structure in Kirkland, at 220 1st Street downtown, with the assistance of Bellevue Firefighters.

Firefighters discovered the fire in a dumpster outside the building, and it was rapidly extinguished. There were no injuries. But the fire did cause some smoke damage to the structure.

"It generated a lot of smoke, and the apartment building had to be ventilated to clear it out," said KFD Battalion Chief Mike Jeffery.

The cause is under investigation.