Tenants Escape Arson Fire

Three people suffered minor injuries early Saturday after an arsonist reportedly heaved a Molotov cocktail inside a Browne’s Addition apartment building.

It would have been much worse if not for Larry Sutherland, a longtime tenant of Park Manor Apartments.

The 29-year-old single parent was barefoot when he ran upstairs, kicked in two doors and helped nine people to safety through thick smoke and shooting flames.

Thirty-five firefighters in 11 trucks quickly extinguished the blaze at 2014 W. Fourth Ave.

The fire was confined to the top-floor hallway and parts of three apartments.

“It was adrenaline,” Sutherland said. “It’s no big deal. I just hope someone else would do that for me.”

Sutherland said he heard someone running up the stairs at about 1:45 a.m., then a noise that sounded like a bottle breaking against a door. Then he heard the person run downstairs.

He later heard police talking about a Molotov cocktail being the ignition source.

Fire investigator Ernie Nye declined to be interviewed, saying through another official that he didn’t want to jeopardize the investigation.

Tenant Mary Erickson suffered burns to both hands and was treated and released from Deaconess Medical Center.

An unidentified man was slightly injured after jumping out a second-story window.

Sutherland was helping some residents crawl to safety when he cut his hand on glass he believes came from the bottle used in the gas cocktail.

The three-story brick building contains about 25 units. Residents quickly evacuated and waited out of the cold in a Spokane Transit Authority bus.

Sutherland said an apartment resident had reported a recent run-in with some “young punks” in the neighborhood.

“He thinks they were trying to get even with him,” Sutherland said. “Someone had no respect for human life at all.”

, DataTimes