Surrounded by flames, Fire District 3 crew saves home

There was no time to take photos off the walls or pack any family mementos.

With flames rushing toward them, Davy Caven and his son-in-law, Chuck Kelley, grabbed their dogs and miniature goats, put them in their cars and made a run for it.

“I saw 100-foot flames,” said Caven. “It was just a wall of flames.”

Just before Caven left his home on Wednesday afternoon a crew of three Spokane County Fire District 3 firefighters arrived. They told him it was time to go.

After he drove down his lengthy driveway, Caven stopped and looked back. He saw only fire. The flames had overrun the driveway.

So sure the home was about to be devoured by flames, he called his wife and told her it was gone.

In the chaos of the fast-moving Fish Lake fire on Wednesday near the unincorporated town of Marshall, fire officials managing the scene thought it was gone, too. They reported that the home had been destroyed.

But behind the flames, firefighters hadn’t given up.

Their main escape route cut off, the firefighters were left alone with a fire engine that held 800 gallons of water. No other crews could get in to help them.

District 3 Fire Chief Bruce Holloway said the crew found an unimproved, little used road that led off to the west toward the railroad tracks. But they elected to stay.

“They just had hunkered down there,” Holloway said.

The fire got so close it burned a flower bed under a window on the west side of the house. The deck was charred, but a sprinkler had been set up on the deck, Holloway said. “That really helped,” he said.

In the end, the small crew saved the house, though it will need some new siding. Two chicken coops with 20 chickens and six ducks inside burned to the ground, as did a goat shed.

The crew included volunteer firefighters based at the district’s Station 35, 1801 W. Gibbs Road. Holloway said some of the crew members did not want to be named.

On Thursday wisps of smoke still rose from the blackened forest that completely surrounded the Caven’s house, garage and RV. Crews with Pulaskis and a hose worked to put out hot spots only feet from the charred deck.

Caven and his wife, Elaine, returned home Thursday afternoon to gather a few items before heading back to a motel room to get out of the smoke. Both are very grateful to the firefighters who saved their home.

“What they did was super,” he said.