Fire damages apartment complex

An early-morning apartment fire forced eight tenants out of five apartment units early Monday and caused a 6-year-old boy to stay a night in the hospital for observation.

Spokane Fire Investigator Capt. Mike Zambryski spent most of the morning investigating the fire at 4102 N. Regal St., which is a 12-unit apartment building.

The fire call came in at 3:16 a.m., Zambryski said. It appears the cause was a stove that wasn’t turned off.

“When fire crews arrived on the scene, fire was coming out of the front door and out the back window,” he said. “It raced through that apartment, got into the attic and burned through the roof.”

The fire occurred on the second-floor of the two-story apartment building and extended north and south to the adjoining apartments. Two other apartments below the fire suffered water damage, he said.

A mother and her 6-year-old boy were able to get out of the apartment where the fire started. But the boy, who suffers from asthma, had some smoke inhalation and was transported to Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Zambryski said he visited the mother and the boy on Monday afternoon. “He’s doing fine. It’s just one of those things. They want to watch him overnight.”

The fire originated in the mother’s kitchen in the area of a free-standing electric range, Zambryski said.

“The problem is there is so much damage I can’t do testing to see if one of the knobs was on,” he said. “But that’s what everything is pointing to at this time.”

The first responding crews feared the fire would extend the entire length of the building and called for a second alarm. However, they were able to contain the fire mostly to the one apartment.

The mother who lived in the apartment where the fire started did not have renter’s insurance, he said. The fire destroyed or damaged all the contents of the apartment.

The apartment manager was working to find other apartments for the displaced renters, he said.