Fire destroys home near city

After her mother died, Wendy Musser sold the farmhouse and moved the family’s treasured heirlooms to her new house, intending to hold on to them until her nieces were old enough to take them.

Those belongings had already survived a chimney fire in the farmhouse years ago.

They weren’t so lucky on Thursday when a fire swallowed them and Musser’s entire double-wide mobile home on South Assembly Road west of Spokane while Musser was out to lunch for an hour and a half.

Despite her sister’s efforts to battle the blaze with a garden hose while talking with 911 dispatchers on her cordless phone, the fire advanced so far that the roof became unstable and firefighters had to retreat and prevent the fire from spreading to the surrounding wildlands.

The three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot home was destroyed.

“Oh my God,” said Musser’s sister Sandy Belsby, watching as most of the roof collapsed with a dull thud. “There’s nothing you can do, but you sure hate to see it.”

Belsby covered her face with the palm of her left hand, fingertips against her forehead. She alternated between shaking her head and nodding.

“She worked so hard to get this together,” she said, with tears forming in her eyes.

Five units from Spokane County Fire District 10 and three units from Fire District 3 responded to the call at about 1:30 p.m. along with several Washington Department of Natural Resources crews scouting to ensure the fire didn’t spread to the dried-out wildlands, Fire District 10 Deputy Chief Rod Heimbigner said.

Firefighters battled the flames from inside the structure for about 20 minutes before they were forced out, he said.

Official didn’t have any immediate explanation for a cause, he said.

Belsby’s home was only 27 feet away but didn’t appear damaged by the flames.

The woman was spraying paint off her garage when she saw flames and smoke coming out of the back door of her sister’s house, Belsby said.

She tried battling it with a garden hose.

“I’m glad I didn’t go anyplace this afternoon,” she said.

After firefighters arrived, Belsby and a third sister, Terrie Tyson, tried calling Musser on her cell phone to tell her what happened, but the phone was in the house.

Musser said she didn’t know of the fire until she drove down the rural, gravel road when it was partially obscured with brown-gray smoke, she said.

The worst part for her was losing the furniture and heirlooms that belonged to her dead parents, she said.

But not all of the items were lost. She’d already given a table and a hutch to a niece, she said.