Son, 5, alerts Burner to fire

CARNATION -- When she explains why she decided to run for Congress, Darcy Burner says the birth of her son, Henry, five years ago changed her life.

· See photos of the damage to Burner's house

Tuesday morning, he may have saved it.

A few minutes after 7 a.m., Henry burst into his sleeping parents' bedroom in their home near Carnation, yelling about a fire. Burner scooped up Henry and ran outside, as smoke filled their wood-frame rambler on the edge of Ames Lake, triggering alarms.

"He woke up and did exactly what he's supposed to do," Burner said.

Her husband, Mike, grabbed a fire extinguisher and attacked the spreading flames. But within minutes, the house was engulfed, and Mike Burner joined his wife and son outside as they watched their home burn.

"This was an extremely intense, hot fire," Redmond Fire Capt. Frank Glaser said. "The house is a total loss."

The house was valued at $316,000.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, although a spokesman for Burner said she had been told that faulty wiring on a lamp in Henry's bedroom seemed a likely explanation.

The three family members were not injured. Their dog, a golden retriever puppy named Bruce Wayne, was pulled from the house, dripping wet but apparently unhurt, by firefighters after they had doused much of the fire. The family cat, Charlotte, died in the fire.

The Burners were staying with friends Tuesday. The fire destroyed virtually everything in their home, including furniture, clothes, family mementos and photographs.

"Unfortunately, our home and all of the possessions in it are a total loss, but I am so grateful that my family and I escaped safely," Burner said in a written statement late Tuesday. "We may have lost our home and our possessions, but for the most part they can be replaced, and I feel like a true tragedy was narrowly avoided today. Please rest assured that while we have been a bit shaken by what happened, Mike, Henry and I are all okay."

Burner, 37, is a Democrat making her second attempt to unseat Republican Dave Reichert, who defeated her by 3 percentage points to win re-election in 2006. She was a middle manager at Microsoft when the birth of her son motivated her to enter politics to bring about positive change for the future, she has said.

The 8th Congressional District, which Reichert has represented since 2004, takes in eastern King and Pierce counties. The Burners' house at 3630 West Ames Lake Drive N.E. is in unincorporated King County; the Redmond Fire Department provides fire protection.

By the time the first fire engines arrived at 7:43 a.m. at the Burners' house in response to their 911 call, flames were shooting 20 feet above the roof, Glaser said. The fire likely started in the rambler's daylight basement, where the bedrooms are, and rose quickly via a central stairway to ignite the rest of the structure, he said.

		Mike Kane / P-I
	Redmond firefighters work the scene of a fire that burned through the Ames Lake house of Darcy Burner near Carnation.

With no chance to save the home, firefighters worked to keep the fire from spreading to nearby houses in the heavily wooded neighborhood clustered around the lake. Around 20 firefighters from several departments responded. The fire was brought under control around 9 a.m., although the debris was still smoking three hours later.

The fire left most of the house a charred skeleton, although a Honda Civic hybrid with a "Darcy Burner" bumper sticker was still parked in the garage. The house's small wooden boat dock was undamaged.

The couple moved to Washington state from Northern California when Mike Burner took a job with Microsoft in 1998. Darcy Burner joined him at the company in 2000. Neither works there now: She quit in 2004 to attend law school, which she left after a year to begin her first congressional campaign; he stopped working at Microsoft in 2007 to became a stay-at-home parent.