SEATTLE -- A home on West Seattle's waterfront burned down early Wednesday morning.

The fire broke out around 5:15 a.m. in the 4200 block of Beach Drive and the fire was raging when firefighters arrived, officials said.

"Flames coming from the second floor of the building, that's what they saw," said Helen Fitzpatrick with Seattle Fire.

Firefighters had to use axes to chop and tear at the corrugated metal siding of this new construction building.

Lorna Walter lives just down the block said she smelled the smoke.

"Extremely strong," she said. "So strong that it bothered you to breathe."

The smell was so strong it had seeped into her garage.

At first I thought, gosh, was there something in our house 'cause it was so strong?" she wondered. "But then I said to my husband, there must be a fire somewhere."

A section of Beach Drive was shut down for hours.

Firefighters say the fire started on the second story and quickly burned through the floor, causing it to collapse into the garage.

According to officials, no one was inside at the time, but construction on the home was almost finished.

"The sheet rock's in, it's all nearly complete," Fitzpatrick said.

One firefighter fell at the scene and suffered minor injuries to his arm. He was taken to Harborview as a precaution, but he's doing OK.

Fire investigators say the cause of the fire was accidental, and damage was estimated at $250,000.

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