Valley fire handled smoke, noxious fumes

A rise in the number of medical calls bumped the total number of calls for the Spokane Valley Fire Department to 231 for the week of Sept. 9-15, a bit more than usual.

One of those calls resulted in a lot of smoke, but not much damage. Firefighters were called by a neighbor of a home in the 7200 block of East Boone Avenue just before 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 14. The overgrown front yard was on fire. The house had been vacant for more than a year and the tall weeds were burning, said assistant fire marshal Bill Clifford.

Two young boys were playing on the property before the fire began. “They found a barbecue lighter in the garage,” Clifford said. “They were lighting bugs and weeds on fire. The third fire they lit, they couldn’t stomp it out.”

The weeds all burned but the home was not damaged. A 12-year-old boy later admitted starting the fire and Clifford said he had previously counseled the boy after he started a fire two years ago. The fire investigator will determine whether the boy should pay restitution or even face possible charges since it is his second offense, Clifford said.

Several fire engines responded to the Longhorn Barbecue restaurant on Argonne the evening of Sept. 11 after someone called to say the building was filling with smoke. Firefighters urged customers to evacuate, though some insisted on staying until their credit cards were returned, Clifford said.

The restaurant has a large barbecue pit where they cook meat over an open flame. Over time grease accumulates in the smoke stack. “The heat from the fire, depending on how hot it is, will ignite that,” Clifford said. “I think they said they had a couple of pigs they were cooking that day. That’s twice this year we’ve responded there for fires in their smoke stack.”

There was some smoke damage to the restaurant, but a dollar estimate was not available.

Crews responded to the Liberty Lake Walgreen’s at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 13 after someone reported the smell of gasoline in the building. It turned out that the gas station next door had just recently had its tanks filled. “Probably the residual fumes went into the air handling systems, which filled the building with the gas smell,” he said.

The Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service requested help from firefighters on Sept. 15 at 4616 N. Larch Road. Animal protection officers were seizing more than two dozen cats from the home, which had extremely squalid conditions. They asked firefighters to use their respirators to go inside the house and retrieve some traps that had been set out to catch some of the cats. “We put our air packs on,” Clifford said. “The fumes inside the home were too noxious for people to go in.”