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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

FBI joins investigation

For the second time this week, a suspicious fire has devastated an Inland Northwest business.

Capone’s, a sports bar in Post Falls, was destroyed by flames early Wednesday, officials said. While the building still stands, its interior was gutted.

Spokane’s Whitley Fuel warehouse was diminished to a pile of rubble on Monday after a blaze that caused a neighborhood evacuation and a runoff of petroleum products that are now a visible sheen on the Spokane River.

On Wednesday, Spokane fire investigators were joined by the FBI and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms unit to scour the neighborhood around the fuel depot at 2733 N. Pittsburg to conduct witness interviews.

“Investigating a fire is time-consuming,” said Spokane Fire Department Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer. “It’s a lot of hands-on work. Much like rings on a tree, you have to go through each layer and find out what’s there.”

That’s why fire departments ask for outside assistance.

“If there’s a suspicious origin of a fire, we might call ATF,” said Coeur d’Alene Fire Department’s Deputy Chief Jim Washco. “We’re trained, but they have people that that’s all they do. The evidence starts to deteriorate quickly, so we want to investigate it as quickly as possible.”

The federal government also has the advantage of high-level, expensive technology and on-site labs, officials said.

Fire investigations start with determining a cause: natural, human or an act of God, such as lightning.

“There are several factors that make it difficult to determine how a fire starts. … Especially when there’s a lot of heat, it destroys evidence, like Monday’s fire,” Schaeffer said.

Using shovels, hand tools and meters, investigators first look for where the fire started, and then its path.

“If we see something that indicates it was a plug that sparked, we investigate it differently,” Washco said. “Once you determine it’s human-caused, you start making assumptions: What are the indicators in that area? Was there any evidence lying around, anything out of place?”

If the investigation is going down the arson trail, the area is treated like a crime scene, fire officials said. Whitley’s was cordoned off with police tape on Tuesday after several hours of investigation, but on Wednesday authorities stopped short of saying it was intentionally caused.

On Tuesday, the Fire Department sent out an erroneous press release that stated the fire was deliberately set. The mistake occurred when the Fire Department used a template with wording from an old press release.

In general, during investigations “we try to find the remaining first material burned or a device,” Shaeffer said.

Once investigators have figured out the where and how, it’s time for interviews to begin.

That’s where police skills come in, Schaeffer said. Spokane fire investigators are trained firefighters and commissioned police officers through the Spokane Police Academy.

“It takes the skills of a police detective combined with the experience of a good fire officer to make a good fire investigator,” Schaeffer said.