A fire late Friday night at a military housing apartment complex has left five families displaced and a firefighter hospitalized in Seattle.

Navy Region Northwest Fire and Emergency Services received the call for the Larkspur Circle fire at 11 p.m. and responded promptly. The blaze, the cause of which is still under investigation, worked its way through the eight-unit Whidbey Apartments complex.

“They really responded quickly,” said Kim Martin, NAS Whidbey public information officer.

Crews from the Oak Harbor Fire Department and North Whidbey Fire and Rescue lent their services to the potentially tragic cause.

“They came in and provided assistance right away,” Martin said. “It’s nice to have a mutual aid agreement like that.”

“We were only there for three hours,” said Ray Merrill, Oak Harbor Fire Department battalion chief. “It was more smoke and spot fires at that point.”

The families at home during the fire were safely evacuated. However, fire Captain Wayne Barlage of the Navy Region Northwest Fire and Emergency Services suffered second and third degree burns to his hands, arms, and face at the residential fire when a window he was standing beside exploded in what firefighters call a flashover.

Barlage was transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where his condition is satisfactory. He will be retained for at least two weeks to allow doctors to evaluate the condition of the burns.

Another firefighter was transported to Whidbey General Hospital for smoke inhalation and released. One resident received care for the same condition at the naval hospital.

A dog and cat were the only fatalities.

Airman Brent Evans, an aviation machinist mate with VAQ-137, was driving home with his wife, Cortney, when they saw the blaze.

“We were going up the hill on Ault Field Road when we saw it,” he said. “I knew right there that it was ours no doubt about it. It was a complete surprise.”

Evans’ rabbit somehow survived the smoke that enveloped the apartment. The couple had lived in the complex for less than a month.

“The smoke damage is really bad,” the airman said. “The fire actually stopped about halfway through our neighbor’s wall to the left of our wall.”

Evans and four other families were put up in a hotel for the weekend by the Island County Chapter of the American Red Cross. The local chapter also helped six of the families purchase food and provided drinks and snacks for the firefighters. The airman and his wife already have the keys for a new residence in the new and comparatively plush Coral Sea Housing development at Maylor Point.

“We’re stoked,” Evans said.

Three of the apartments would still be inhabitable, but American Eagle Communities offered to relocate the families, all of which elected to make the move to different units in the Whidbey Apartments complex.

Naval Housing representative Betty Jo Shaddy-Brown, surveying the damage on Tuesday, said exactly what was on everyone’s mind.

“It could have been a lot worse,” she said.