KINGSTON — A pile of vegetable oil-soaked rags were the cause of a smoky and smoldering fire that drew crews from Poulsbo, Kingston and Suquamish to an Ohio Avenue building housing a pizzeria and a laundromat here Sunday evening.

North Kitsap Fire & Rescue, Poulsbo Fire Department and Navy Region Northwest Fire Department crews were called to the converted home that includes Westside Pizza and the Kingston Laundromat at about 5:20 p.m., Feb. 5 after a caller reported smoke in both businesses. The first units to arrive on scene were there in a little over five minutes, and confirmed that there was indeed light smoke throughout the building. Concerned that there was a hidden fire inside the structure, they shut down propane to the building and made sure they’d have adequate water supplies by tying into a hydrant across SR104. As a result, the road used to off-load ferry traffic was closed to travel for a brief period. Firefighters found the source inside one of the laundromat’s commercial dryers, quickly extinguished the blaze inside, disconnected their water supply across 104 and sent the Poulsbo and Navy crews back to their stations before most had even reached the scene.

Officials learned that a nearby restaurant had washed the white terrycloth rags earlier and put them in the dryer. Used to soak up excess cooking oil, the rags are usually handled by a laundry service but employees found they’d run out of clean ones over the weekend and decided to wash them themselves.

There were no injuries to firefighters or civilians. Operations at Westside Pizza were briefly interrupted while employees evacuated the building; though the laundromat remains open, propane to that side of the business has been shut down until the owner can have it restored.