Fireworks cause fire in Pullman
PULLMAN – Fireworks started a Tuesday night blaze that seriously damaged the home of several Washington State University students.
Just after 10 p.m., Joanna Nicholson was getting ready for bed at her one-story home on the 1700 block of Wheatland Drive when she noticed light outside one of her windows. At first she thought it was from a flare that was being set off in her neighborhood.
“It was kind of glowing,” the WSU graduate student said. “But then I lifted the shade and a wall of fire is all I saw.” In a few seconds, the hedge of junipers between her home and the neighboring home was engulfed.
“I grabbed my cats and the photo albums, of course,” she said. Fortunately, her 4-year-old daughter wasn’t home, she said. After putting the cats in her car, she ran back into the house to hear a window breaking and see flames crawling across her ceiling. “I knew I better get out of there.”
Firefighters arrived to find the house was fully involved, but they got it under control within a half-hour. The fire also caused heat damage to the siding and windows of the home next door.
“It doesn’t look bad from the outside,” said Rich Dragoo, Pullman’s fire inspector, who was combing over the scene Wednesday morning. “But there’s damage all inside of the roofing system. It started burning the rafters and it spread extremely fast.”
Residents reported seeing and hearing fireworks near the homes during the evening. Dragoo said that investigators are looking into who might have been setting the fireworks but that it doesn’t appear any laws were broken. He described the fireworks in question as mortars, which shoot into the air.
Nicholson and her roommates spent Wednesday sorting out the damage and planning to move to another home for a few months until their house could be repaired. “The good thing is we’re all OK and no one was hurt,” she said. “But this is a prime example why residential fireworks should be illegal.”
The city of Pullman follows state law when it comes to regulating fireworks. Private use of legal fireworks is permitted, City Supervisor John Sherman said.
The last time fireworks seriously damaged a structure in the city was in July 1994, he said. Investigators discovered the blaze was started by an illegal bottle rocket.
“It cost the city a church on College Hill,” Sherman said. “Since then we’ve had numerous fires that have been fireworks-caused,” he said, adding that most haven’t caused major property damage.
Still, the city works to educate its residents to use caution when setting off fireworks and it offers a public fireworks display for the Fourth of July, he said.