Couple Escapes ‘Wall Of Fire’ As Ponderosa Home Burns

Loud popping sounds woke a Spokane Valley couple early Tuesday just before fire roared through their Ponderosa home.

Lloyd “Les” Blom and his wife, Carolyn, were asleep in their upstairs bedroom when the fire began. Les Blom followed the noise downstairs to the back porch and pulled open curtains covering the sliding glass door.

“It was just a wall of fire,” Les Blom said. “You couldn’t even see out.”

He yelled for his wife and the groggy coupled raced from the burning house at 4324 S. Farr at about 12:20 a.m. They pounded on a neighbor’s door and asked them to call firefighters.

Several other neighbors heard the fire and also called firefighters.

“We thought there was gunshots, but when I looked out the window there were about 12-foot flames shooting out of the house,” said neighbor Bob Marshall, who woke up when he heard the fire crackling.

Valley Fire investigator Eric Olson said the fire started on the back porch. An extension cord leading from an electrical socket to a refrigerator failed, sparking the blaze, Olson said.

Once ignited, the fire traveled through the wall sockets to the attic before engulfing the tri-level house, Olson said.

The Bloms escaped injury, but were forced to watch helplessly as almost everything they owned burned inside the house.

Blom spent Tuesday morning picking through the charred remains with friends and neighbors. In the soggy dining room, he tried with little success to dust the black soot from a china set he bought in Vietnam.

“The flames broke through here and it just went,” Blom said, explaining how quickly the fire spread through the dining room and kitchen.

Lost inside were pictures, car keys, clothes, wallets and other valuables the Bloms have spent nearly 30 years collecting. The couple’s pickup truck and car were still parked in the smoky garage.

“All I got out with was my shorts,” Blom said. “There was no time to get anything.”

After the fire was extinguished, Blom was able to salvage a pocket watch given to him by his father, who died when Blom was 5 years old. Hunting rifles Blom had stored the basement also were still locked safely in their gun cabinet.

Blom said insurance inspectors have told him the house is a total loss.

He and his wife, who are staying with friends, expect to begin rebuilding as soon as possible, adding that they had insurance on the house and its contents.

“We’re not going to move,” Blom said. “We like the neighbors too much.”

, DataTimes