2 Home Fires May Both Be Accidental Timing, Proximity Initially Made Officials Suspicious

A state fire marshal was investigating separate fires on Tuesday that destroyed a new house and a vacation home along Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Firefighters responding to a fire at Arrow Point on Monday night discovered the second blaze near Carlin Bay.

Both homes, which were not occupied, were destroyed. Fire investigators initially labeled the fires as suspicious, but on Tuesday said they believe both were accidentally started.

“Being that they both happened at the same time, along the same highway, we looked at them suspiciously, but it’s not really panning out that way,” said East Side Fire District chief Jim Trittine.

The homes are about six miles apart along state Highway 97. Investigators were still working late Tuesday to determine what started the fires.

A neighbor reported the Arrow Point fire about 6:50 p.m., Kootenai County Fire Protection District No. 1 firefighters said. Flames had fully engulfed an 800-square-foot cabin at 4945 Arrow Point Drive by the time East Side firefighters arrived, Trittine said.

Flames threatened two other homes in the area, but neither was damaged, Trittine said.

A Spokane couple who own the cabin had met with a contractor a few hours before the fire to discuss remodeling plans, and had been in and out of the home all day Monday. Michael Kennedy, 53, left a fire burning in the cabin’s new wood stove when he left the last time, according to a Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department report.

Firefighters responding to the Arrow Point blaze from the district’s Morgan Station spotted a house on fire about one mile north of Carlin Bay, Trittine said.

Fire had pretty well consumed the ranch-style house in the 13100 block of Highway 97 when those firefighters stopped to battle the blaze, Trittine said. They were later joined by firefighters from Post Falls, Kootenai County and Hayden.

A Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department report estimated the value of the 3,000-square-foot house, which the owner had not moved into, as about $200,000.

Neighbors told deputies the unidentified homeowner was in Florida. Construction workers had been at the house earlier in the day.

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