Valley fire destroys businesses

Charred, water-soaked walls and a drooping roof were the only remains of a Spokane Valley warehouse where fire destroyed three businesses early Thursday.

The two-alarm fire on the 2200 block of North Locust Road, near Yoke’s supermarket on Argonne Road, was first reported at about 12:30 a.m., said Battalion Chief Dave Umthun of Spokane County Fire District 1. The fire was under control by about 4:30 a.m., he said. No one was inside the building when the fire broke out and no one was hurt fighting the blaze.

“I’m sure all three businesses were a total loss,” Umthun said. “The majority of the building will have to come down. The walls are caving in.”

Brett Bros. Bat Co., which manufactures baseball bats, Crystal Springs LLC, a provider of filtered water service, and Safety Kleen Systems Inc. were located there. Safety Kleen deals in solvents and cleaning agents for industrial use, but Umthun couldn’t say whether those ignited the fire. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Wind reaching 20 to 30 mph fanned the blaze, he said.

“Given the fact that the roof was starting to fall in, we couldn’t put firefighters inside,” Umthun said. “It was a defensive fire from the beginning.”

Ilene Aills, who lives in a senior apartment complex across the street from the building, said she didn’t notice any wind, but she saw some explosions she suspected were caused by chemicals.

“Each time one of those barrels busted, it went ‘Boom! Boom!’ ” said Aills, 71. “And the flames went up to, like, five stories high.”

Umthun confirmed that there were 55-gallon barrels of solvent inside Safety Kleen, which uses the chemicals to clean auto parts.

“Everything in that building was either combustible or flammable,” he said.

Well, not quite everything.

The fire stopped at Crystal Springs’ portion of the building, Umthun said. The fire melted the plastic containers holding the drinking water, causing it to spill and aid in putting out the blaze.

The Department of Ecology had a crew on the scene Thursday morning and determined the chemicals involved in the fire were diluted enough by water not to cause environmental problems, Umthun said.

Many firefighters from Fire District 1 and from the Spokane Fire Department, which assisted, were sent away by 5 a.m., Umthun said. But some remained Thursday morning, dousing hot spots with water, Umthun said.

“When a roof collapses like that, it traps a lot of debris and whatnot,” he said. “It’s hard to get water on a lot of the smoldering spots.”

Simmco, a company that restores properties after fires and other disasters, was mopping up the mess Thursday afternoon.

“It is a pretty good-sized fire for Spokane,” said Chris Duggan, president of the company. “You probably only get one or two of those a year.”

Aills said it was lucky the fire occurred so early in the morning and on a holiday, when no one was around.

“I guess that was a blessing,” she said.