Bellingham man seriously injured after he’s trapped in an apartment fire Thursday morning

A Bellingham man was taken to the hospital with serious injuries after he was trapped inside his burning Birchwood neighborhood apartment Thursday morning.

The man, who was in his 40s, was airlifted to the burn unit at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Bellingham Fire Department Captain Dave Pethick told The Bellingham Herald.

Firefighters were called at 6:07 a.m. Thursday, June 30, to the 3500 block of Northwest Avenue for the report of a residential fire, according to the PulsePoint app.

The initial report also said somebody was entrapped, Pethick said.

“When crews arrived on scene, they went right into rescue mode, based on the information we had been given,” Pethick said. “They went inside and found one individual, and they pulled him outside.”

The man was quickly taken to St. Joseph’s hospital in Bellingham and later airlifted to Seattle for treatment of his injuries, which Pethick described as serious.

Firefighters then turned their efforts to the fire, and quickly knocked it down, Pethick reported, containing flames to the unit the victim was inside.

Pethick said he had not heard that any of the other residents in what was believed to be a six-unit apartment building were displaced by the fire, though he said there may have been smoke damage to the unit above the one that burned.

Investigators had not yet determined a cause of the fire, but damage was estimated at $75,000, Pethick said.