Fire Is Worst In Decades For County

Saturday’s tragic fire was the worst in Spokane County since 1956, according to newspaper files.

“This is the worst I can think of right now in a single fire,” said Spokane Fire Marshal Garry Miller.

Usually one or two people a year die from fires in Spokane. During the last 25 years, fewer than a dozen fires caused more than one death.

A 1990 fire in the Onion Creek area of Stevens County killed six children when their trailer burned. The blaze occurred outside a fire protection district, in a place so remote that volunteer firefighters who responded never had a chance to rescue the children.

On Nov. 8, 1956, five children - ages 9, 7, 6, 4 and 2 - were killed in a blaze at 4318 E. Rich in the Spokane Valley.

Overloaded wiring, perhaps from an iron, was blamed for the fire. The children died of suffocation while their 26-year-old mother escaped.

On Aug. 14, 1951, four children - ages 8, 7, 6 and 5 - died in Deep Creek when their house burned. Heroic efforts to save the children by an 11-year-old sister, Marjorie Brotherton, failed.

On Feb. 11, 1946, seven children died in a fire at the George Lochner home north of Trentwood. The children - ages 7, 6, 4 and 3 - were trapped in an upstairs bedroom of an old farmhouse.

“The very young and the very old suffer the most in fires,” Miller said.

, DataTimes