Bellevue Home Total Loss After Possible Electrical Fire

reported that an Eastgate home is a total loss Friday after a blaze that is believed to have started by an electrical failure.

A few minutes after 11 a.m. Friday, a concerned neighbor called 9-1-1 to report popping noises and smoke coming from a house in the 4000 block of 140th Avenue SE, according to a press release by Bellevue Fire Lt. Troy Donlin.

The homeowner and his son were not in the house at the time because they had been outside in the front yard since 10:30 a.m. watching the lightning storm, Donlin wrote.

Bellevue fire fighters arrived in five minutes of the neighbor's call to find heavy black smoke and flames coming from the north side of the single family home, according to the release.

The smoke was at knee level and there was heavy heat throughout the house, Donlin said. Firefighters located and quickly extinguished the fire, confining it to a small office, he wrote.

Bellevue fire investigators believe an electrical failure in the office to be the cause and origin of the fire, Donlin wrote. It was not known whether smoke detectors were working at the time of the blaze, he wrote.

Losses are estimated at $250,000, with three residents displaced, Donlin wrote. The owner is insured and no one was injured, he wrote.

-- Information from the Bellevue Fire Department