Two pet dogs died in a house fire in the Freeland area this past Thursday afternoon, fire officials said.

The fire was in a single-story, three-bedroom frame house on Brainers Road in a residential area off East Harbor Road.

The residents, a couple, had left the house less than an hour before the fire was reported, Island County Fire District 3 Deputy Chief Jon Beck said Monday.

The fire was called in shortly before 4 p.m. by a neighbor who spotted smoke pouring from beneath the eaves, Beck said.

Beck said the fire, believed to be electrical in origin, began in the closet of a front bedroom being used as an office. He said the occupants said later that they had noticed a slight hot-plastic smell earlier in the day.

The dogs that perished in the fire were a short-hair and a long-hair, Beck said. There were no other injuries, and no damage to neighboring houses, he said.

Beck said that the flames were limited to the room where the fire originated, but that there was extensive smoke and heat damage throughout the house.

Beck said nearly 20 firefighters responded, along with two Island County Sheriff’s deputies and a Washington State Patrol trooper.

He said flames were visible inside the house and smoke was pouring from beneath the eaves when firefighters arrived. He said the flames had all but subsided when a window burst and admitted a new source of oxygen.

“It flared up again, but we knocked it down pretty quickly,” Beck said.

He said firefighters remained at the scene for about three hours.

The investigation continues into the cause of the fire, he said.