Fire kills 70-year-old man and a dog in Seattle suburb

A 70-year-old man and a dog were killed in a house fire in a Seattle suburb on Thursday night, the Fourth of July. A second dog remains missing.

The fire broke out at a home in the Burien/Highline area, in a house where 12 people lived. The fire then spread next door to a second house.

A neighbor ran to the second house to warn the residents about the fire.

The woman in the home shouted at her husband to call 911, while she ran outside to get the garden house. When she returned to her home, the fire had engulfed the house in flames, and she could not reach her husband.

She yelled for him from outside the house to evacuate. Firefighters arriving on the scene were able to take her husband out of the house, but he had already died of smoke inhalation.

An official cause hasn’t been stated, although fireworks are suspected. Witnesses said they heard a firework going off before the fire.

The fire investigation unit of the King County Sheriff's Office is in charge of investigating. They are police officers with training in firefighting. Sheriff's

Office spokesperson Ryan Abbott said they expect to announce the cause Monday.

"They have a lot of witnesses,” Abbott said. “The other house where the fire started there were 12 people living in that house. So they're having to interview a ton of people that live in that house, and different witnesses that saw stuff."

Both homes are uninhabitable. The Red Cross has provided space for the 13 people who have been displaced by the fire.

Abbott emphasized the need for getting out of this kind of house quickly.

"With the way that the houses were made, and what they were made from, the second you hear about a fire, even if you can't see how big the fire is, the first thing you need to do is get everybody out of the house as quickly as possible,” he said. “Don't even stop to collect your belongings.”