Fire damages Spokane family’s home

Charles Curtiss had just turned on his nephew’s Xbox to play a video game called “American Chopper” on Christmas Eve in his north Spokane home when the lights started to flicker.

He thought someone had turned on a garage heater and stressed the circuit.

Two family members were camped out in his garage, but he didn’t realize they were not home.

His nephew checked the garage and ran back screaming that the garage was on fire. The fire was in the 6000 block of North Driscoll near Francis.

The hose attached to the house was frozen.

“Me and my nephew started a bucket brigade to put it out,” Curtiss said.

They put a few dozen buckets of water on the fire before Spokane Fire crews arrived minutes after they were called.

The fire started in the garage, then climbed into the attic where several candy dispenser machines were stored.

Curtiss’ father, who used to live there, had worked selling the machines.

No one was hurt in the fire that damaged the garage and sent out smoke that damaged some rooms.

Curtiss, his wife and three daughters are renters and have lived in the home since 1995.

The owners live in California, he said.

Curtiss’ three daughters stayed at a neighbor’s house across the street while fire trucks blocked the street.

Several firefighters used axes to cut holes through the roof to reach the attic fire.

“First thing, I got the kids out. Then I went back in to get their coats,” said Curtiss’ wife, Angela Curtiss.

The girls, ages 2, 4, and 8, were jolted by the commotion.

“They were freaking out for a while,” she said.

She stood outside wrapped in a blanket as she watched crews walk through her house.

One pink present was sitting in front of the house.

She wasn’t sure what had happened to the rest of the Christmas gifts for her family.

As crews cleaned up, one firefighter put on a long, red Santa Claus hat as he talked to other crews by a truck.

“All of us hate to see fires anytime, but especially Christmas Eve,” said Spokane Fire Battalion Chief Craig Cornelius.

But as fires go, it could have been worse. “Compared to a lot of fires we have, this one is relatively minor,” he said.

Good news came when Curtiss told his wife that most of the presents were safe.

Firefighters had knocked a hole in the ceiling of the living room to get at the hot spots in the attached garage attic fire.

Firefighters realized that the pile of presents was directly beneath the hole so they removed the gifts, Curtiss said.

“We watched them carry the presents out,” he said. “They got all the presents out.”

His wife tended to the one pink package that had fallen on the lawn.

“I think that’s Becky’s doll,” Curtis said.

They talked with the investigator and it seemed as if they’d be able to stay the night. Otherwise, they’d go to her mother’s home for the night.

“I come from a long line of suck-it-up and go-with-it,” Curtiss said, as crews started clearing out. “We’re going to be all right.”

Unlike some Christmas Eve fire calls, this one had nothing to do with a tree.

“We have a little fake tree setting on the counter,” said Angela Curtiss.