Candle lit during outage may have sparked fatal fire

Fire officials are investigating the likelihood that a candle burning in the basement of a Suncrest home during a power outage Tuesday night caused a fire that resulted in the death of a 14-year-old boy.

Dustin Barbour, who just graduated from eighth grade at Lakeside Middle School, was killed while he slept in his room at 204 E. Franklin Drive, according to Lt. Russell Armstrong, spokesman for Stevens County Fire District 1.

Barbour, one of three children of Tom and Tena Barbour, was alone at the time, Armstrong said. The fire began in a basement room of the split-level home and spread to the upper floor before smoke and flames alerted neighbors, who called in the fire at 10:09 p.m.

“We had been responding to calls throughout the district because of the power outage,” Armstrong said.

By the time the first unit from Fire District 9 arrived at 10:13 p.m., an unidentified neighbor who works as a firefighter in another district, along with his son, had tried to enter the house but was turned back six feet into the home by heat and flames, Armstrong said. He was treated at the scene for slight heat exhaustion.

Bystanders told firefighters there were two occupants inside the home, and more units from Fire District 1 and Spokane Fire District 9 were called.

The first firefighters on the scene entered the house to conduct a search, and found Barbour in his bed. He was brought outside, but paramedics were unable to revive him, Armstrong said. Crews searched twice more before family members arrived to tell firefighters that no one else remained in the home.

During the ordeal, another firefighter was taken to Sacred Heart Medical Center where he was treated for heat exhaustion, Armstrong said. The spouses of the mostly volunteer firefighters listened as the radio scanners in their homes buzzed with the dreaded words “firefighter down.”

The home of Tom and Tena Barbour and their two daughters was heavily damaged and left uninhabitable by the fire. The family’s dog and two cats also perished.

Crews responding Tuesday night included six units and 16 personnel from Stevens County Fire District 1, four Deer Park ambulance personnel, and four units and 13 personnel from Spokane County Fire District 9, just across the river from Suncrest.

Stevens County fire investigator Dave Jones said Wednesday the cause of the fire is under investigation.

“We believe it is accidental and that it began in a basement bedroom,” Jones said. “It looks like a candle.”

High winds had knocked out power to Suncrest, about 11 miles northwest of Spokane, for more than an hour on Tuesday night.

Jones said the boy’s upstairs room was filled with smoke and heat, but no flame. Armstrong said it had not yet been determined whether the home had functioning smoke detectors. The Stevens County coroner could not be reached Wednesday to confirm the cause of Barbour’s death, which is believed to be smoke inhalation.

News of the death of the 14-year-old hit the Nine Mile Falls area hard. He was a well-liked student who would have been a freshman at Lakeside High School at the start of the school year. Wednesday morning, a small makeshift memorial to Barbour erected outside the home bore the words, “We love you Dustin.”

On the day of his death, the teen had attended football camp with friends. Many of those friends gathered Wednesday at the high school, where the Nine Mile Falls School District had counselors available.

The community has already had to pull together as a result of three suicides by teenagers in the school district this school year.

In each case, emergency personnel from the mostly volunteer fire district have responded.

“We’ve had a lot of losses lately,” Armstrong said. “Every time you try to heal, something else happens.”