EVERETT, Wash. — In a video that Andrew Kim sent KIRO7, you can hear someone saying, “You can feel the heat from here,” about a block away.
“They were both pretty heavily involved by the time we got here. There were flames through the roof,” said Leslie Hynes of the South County Fire Department.
A neighbor told KIRO7 she saw smoke coming out the house further north first. Then flames erupted.
“Smoke and then flames, really, really quickly. I mean like all of a sudden. It took the firefighters six minutes to get here, that's a rough estimate, and the other house was on fire,” said Lauren Tourtellot, who lives down the street.
She said two of her friends ran through the homes to make sure no one was inside while she alerted neighbors.
“I was pounding, I was yelling at them, and I'm like, ‘You need to get out of your house! You need to get out of your house!’” Tourtellot said.
She said some neighbors tried to use a hose on the flames but it was no match.
“It’s like you can't stop it. You just watch everything burn,” Tourtellot said.
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About 40 firefighters responded. The smoke was so heavy at times it was hard to even see the houses.
Neighbors say it was the wind that pushed the flames forward.
“There was a strong wind from the north. If the fire department was here 10 minutes later, there would've been more houses engulfed, there's no doubt about it,” said Lynn Miller, another neighbor.
A family of four lived in one house, and five in the other.
“This is awful, this is a horrible situation for both of them,” Tourtellot said.
Luckily, no one was hurt, but as of Saturday night, a cat was still missing.
Fire investigators are looking into what caused the fire.