Manager douses grease fire

A McDonald’s Restaurant manager used his training Tuesday to quickly douse a grease fire before Spokane Valley firefighters arrived.

He used an extinguisher to put out the flames, and there was minimal damage, Valley Fire spokesman Bill Clifford said. The call for firefighters to McDonald’s was one of six fire calls between May 23 and Tuesday morning.

Fire crews responded to a furnace fire on May 24 in the 1900 block of South Bannen, Clifford said. The crew found none of the family’s smoke alarms were working and gave them two new ones with 10-year batteries.

Overall calls to the Fire Department were down during the seven-day time period, from 230 responses to 175, which confirms suspicions that weather was a contributing factor in the previous time period’s calls, Clifford said.

Firefighters went out on 138 emergency medical calls, Clifford said. The weirdest one was about 6:16 a.m. on May 26 at North Barker Road where a man stabbed himself, intentionally. He survived.

Of the 13 vehicle crashes crews responded to, the most notable involved a 14-year-old motorcyclist, Clifford said. The teen lost control of the bike and hit a curb in the 10000 block of East 26th Avenue. Clifford said the teen was lucky not to have been hurt worse since he wasn’t wearing a motorcycle helmet.