Regional System Pinpoints Causes

Probes of a 185-acre timber fire here Monday and a couple of small timber fires Friday in Pend Oreille County provide some encouragement for a new regional fireinvestigation system being developed in northeastern Washington.

Stevens County Fire Marshal Dave Jones, who wears his county building director hat most of the time, worked with Stevens County Sheriff’s Deputy Tom Crisp to determine the cause of the Tum Tum fire.

After interviewing a witness and going door-to-door in the area, Crisp and Jones found the man they believe caused the fire with a backfiring truck. Jones has had “limited” training in arson investigation and Crisp is being trained.

The county investigation was conducted jointly with the state Department of Natural Resources, which also has investigators for timber fires. Jones said no decision has been made on whether to take action against the man believed responsible for the Tum Tum fire.

Meanwhile, the Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s Department has identified a suspect and, with the Department of Natural Resources, is continuing to investigate two small timber fires near state Highway 211 west of Newport on Friday. Eventually, the Sheriff’s Department plans to have two deputies trained in arson investigation.

Sheriff’s Inspector Ronald Froman said firefighters responding to one of the fires Friday stopped to help a man whose truck had run off the road. The volunteer firefighters took the uninjured man with them and he helped fight the fire, but their report led sheriff’s officers to consider the man a suspect.

Froman said the 19-year-old man claimed he was driving rapidly to report the fire, but he drove past a house where he could have called authorities. He said investigators are interested in the fact that the man is from Airway Heights, where some recent grass fires were considered suspicious.

Jones said one of the goals of the regional fire investigation task force is to train some volunteer firefighters to be arson investigation “first responders.” Their duty would be to watch for signs of arson and to gather or preserve evidence.

For example, Jones said the first responders would be expected to watch for vehicles leaving a fire scene, observe smoke colors that indicate arson and try to keep other firefighters from disturbing the likely point of origin.

State officials called for development of nine regional fire investigation task forces to replace the state fire marshal’s office. In northeast Washington, Spokane, Stevens, Pend Oreille, Lincoln and Ferry counties were asked to band together.

Jones said the system calls for task force members with expertise in various kinds of fires to provide a new version of the traditional mutual aid system. Task force members will provide free assistance at initial firescene investigations, but local districts would have to reimburse the investigator’s department for followup work.

“We’re getting pretty close to having a legitimate body,” Jones said.

Like Froman, Jones said the region’s all-volunteer rural fire districts need as much state help they can get. Jones said the state has provided some of the needed training, but he has doubts about the state’s commitment to the project.

If things work as planned, he sees some advantages to the new system.

Jones said regional investigators should be able to respond much faster than state fire investigators. Local officials sometimes had to keep fire scenes secure for several days while waiting for a state investigator to arrive, he said.