A fire engulfed a double-wide mobile home and prompted a power outage in a Yelm neighborhood early Thursday morning.
Southeast Thurston Fire Authority responded to a residential structure fire at about 1:44 a.m. on the 17000 block of Heather Lane near the Nisqually River, said Deputy Chief of Operations Kevin Denton.
Fire crews found the mobile home fully ablaze and unoccupied, Denton said, so they fought the fire from the outside for about 25 minutes until it was out. The home had one occupant who had evacuated unharmed, but that could not be said for all his pets.
"There was one occupant who lived in the residence with approximately maybe 10 dogs or so," Denton said. "He made it out along with most of his dogs. We do believe that there were maybe four dogs that were still in the house."
Denton said fire crews have yet to confirm how many dogs may have died because the home "burned down so much and there's not much left of it." He said the site is not yet not safe enough for crews to go inside the home.
Medics transported one of the dogs that made it out to a local veterinarian to be treated for burns, Denton said.
Several other homes in the neighborhood were threatened by the blaze, Denton said. Law enforcement evacuated one home, but he said fire crews ultimately prevented the fire from spreading beyond the home where it started.
Notably, the fire caused power lines to drop across the roadway, creating a safety hazard, Denton said.
In response, he said fire crews asked Puget Sound Energy to remotely shut down power in the area. As a result, he said about 1,000 residents were without power for about an hour.
At the height of the fire, Denton said four engines and one medic unit were on scene. Denton said East Olympia Fire District 6 and the Lacey Fire Department assisted Southeast Thurston Fire Authority.
Fire crews remained at the scene for about two hours total and none of them were harmed, Denton said.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation as of Thursday afternoon, Denton said.
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