Residents escape Valley fourplex fire
Two fires an hour apart Friday night kept Spokane County Fire District No. 1 busy.
In the most serious, two Spokane Valley residents narrowly escaped a fire in their apartment.
“They got out just in time,” said Paul Chase, deputy fire marshal for Spokane Valley Fire.
About 11 p.m. Friday, a fire believed to have been ignited by a cigarette started in a fourplex in the 1500 block of North Bowdish Road.
“It basically totally destroyed the contents of the bedroom,” he said.
The occupants got out of the apartment uninjured, but Chase said the smoke detector was not attached to the wall at the time of the fire.
“I honestly don’t know what woke them up,” he said.
The cost of the damage has yet to be determined.
One room in the two-bedroom apartment was destroyed.
“People need to remember to make sure all their smoke detectors are working,” Chase said.
About an hour before the fire on Bowdish, firefighters struggled to reach a fire in a stack of straw in the Greenacres area. At one point a firetruck became stuck in the mud and needed to be pulled out.
That fire did not threaten any buildings, but the pile smoldered into Saturday, Chase said.