Firefighters feel heat battling three blazes

Fires plagued the Spokane area on Friday, stretching fire departments thin and worrying chiefs on a red-flag-warning day.

Three-quarters of the on-duty Spokane Fire Department responded to a two-alarm apartment fire on the South Hill at 5:02 p.m., prompting northern fire stations to cover more area than usual, Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer said.

A wildfire on Tower Mountain south of Spokane – not too far from the Biltmore Apartments fire at South Regal Street and East 53rd Avenue – prompted county District 8 authorities to request a strike team of five additional brushfire engines from elsewhere in the county, Spokane Valley Fire Chief Mike Thompson said.

Two units from the state Department of Natural Resources also moved in, and a DNR two-engine plane made a water drop as the wildfire threatened structures. None was destroyed.

To make matters worse, fireworks started a 2-acre wildfire in eastern Spokane Valley. No additional departments were called in, but the Valley Fire Department had few resources available for some time, Thompson said.

Having just responded to the South Hill fire, Schaeffer gasped when he heard of the Spokane Valley fire over his radio around 5:20 p.m. “And with the red flag day, I’m super worried,” Schaeffer said.

When firefighters arrived at the Biltmore Apartments, a third of one building was raging. There was heavy fire and no sprinklers, he said.

“The fire just spread so rapidly, I think the wind aided it,” Schaeffer said.

Temperatures approaching 100 degrees didn’t help, either. Firefighters dressed in bunker suits and weighed down with gear traded off fighting the fire, which sent black smoke high into the air. More than 40 firefighters responded and knocked down the fire within 45 minutes, Schaeffer said.

It gutted four apartments in a 12-apartment building. Two more apartments sustained heavy damage, and a few more – part of the same building but on the other side of a fire wall – were affected.

Nobody was injured, but two cats died and another was unaccounted for, Battalion Chief Ken Kirsch said.

Fourteen people – including four children – were displaced, Fire Marshall Lisa Jones said. The American Red Cross responded to clothe, house and feed the residents and also to give firefighters water.

No official cause for the fire was available late Friday, but neighbor Jerry Sigismonti said he believed it was started by a barbecue on the third, topmost floor.

“The flames, I mean it was unbelievable,” Sigismonti said. “It went up like a torch.”

He had been at the apartment complex’s pool, but he started pounding on residents’ doors at the burning building. Two people had been napping in one of the top-floor apartments the fire destroyed, he said.

LeeAnn Ray, a student at Apollo College who lives on the second floor of the building, said she and her boyfriend grabbed their computers as they ran from their home.

“Our whole stairwell was filled with smoke, just engulfed with smoke,” Ray said.

At the other blazes, firefighters quickly took command, Thompson said. By 8 p.m. Friday, the Tower Mountain blaze was under control, and the Spokane Valley wildfire was out.