Woman, children escape fire

The brisk wind that swept through Spokane Valley early Wednesday transformed discarded ashes into a raging fire that a woman and her four children barely escaped.

Janice Beauchamp, 35, awoke around 2:30 a.m. to find her house at 8008 E. Francis in the Northwood subdivision on fire. She got her 5- and 9-year-old daughters out of the house, then returned to rescue her 20-month-old and 4-year-old sons. Beauchamp and her oldest son suffered smoke inhalation but no other injuries.

When firefighters arrived, flames were ripping through both floors of the home, said Fire District 9 Chief Bob Anderson. “The fire had already burned through the floor,” he said. “That forced us to create our own access into the structure. We broke out a window and took a chainsaw and turned it into a door. We were able to save the family car because of that.”

The minivan sat in the attached garage later in the day, covered in soot but still in one piece. The walls of the west side of the house, where the bedrooms are located, are still standing. The east side of the house was reduced to charred rubble.

Beauchamp’s husband, Cody, has been working on a construction job in Salt Lake City. He flew home Wednesday morning after a frantic phone call from his wife. The family just completed a large remodeling project and added a deck and hot tub last summer, he said.

He was grateful that his family escaped unharmed. “Everything else can be replaced,” he said as he examined the damage.

Fire investigators determined that the fire started on the east side of the home. “The cause of the fire appears to be discarded ashes,” Anderson said. “It was a windy night and the ashes caught an attached deck and a firewood pile on fire.”

The deck and firewood burned in the gusting wind until the fire became hot enough to break a window. It was the sound of breaking glass that woke Beauchamp, Anderson said. The wind pushed the flames into the house as effectively as a blowtorch.

Beauchamp said it was likely a mother’s instinct that woke her. “I heard a noise and was immediately wide awake,” she said. “I went out in the hallway and looked down to where the dining room was and saw the flames.”

When she saw the fire and hurried her daughters out of the house, there was no smoke and the smoke detectors had not yet sounded, she said. Once she opened the front door to flee into the snow, thick smoke quickly filled the house. She thinks if she had slept much longer, they would have had trouble escaping.

Beauchamp said she had placed fireplace ashes in a metal bucket to cool before she threw them out, something she did routinely.

Anderson said the ashes might not have been a problem if the wind hadn’t fanned the embers into flames, but said caution is always called for. “Please be careful with discarded ashes,” he said. “Keep them away from combustibles and certainly keep them away from the house.”

The family owned two dogs, and one is believed to have died in the fire. “One of my dogs followed the girls out,” Beauchamp said. “I couldn’t go back in for the other dog.”

The house is a total loss, and the family plans to stay with relatives in the area. The home was insured, and they plan to rebuild.