Morning blaze called arson in fire-plagued West Central area

A Monday morning fire burned the back side of a West Central neighborhood home, and its occupants and neighbors – and now fire investigators – are blaming an arsonist.

The fire was started in a pile of household possessions stacked against the house and quickly grew as it ate through furniture and a mattress.

Employees at a neighboring business called 911 shortly before 8 a.m. to report the fire at 1808 W. College Ave.

One of the home’s occupants tried to extinguish it with a garden hose but was unable to do so. Responding fire crews knocked the fire down before it could cause interior or structural damage.

It scorched the back of the house.

The neighborhood has seen a series of suspicious fires this summer, and some residents are growing increasingly concerned that someone could get killed.

While Spokane Fire Department investigators said Monday that the early-morning fire likely was caused by an arsonist, Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer said there have been no more fires in the neighborhood this summer than last. He speculated that increased media attention is just making it appear that way.

Arson investigators were called to the scene of Monday’s fire, interviewed a half-dozen people about what they saw, and tested materials around the home for accelerants.

Wilma Williamson, one of the home’s residents, was drinking her morning coffee when someone outside shouted that the house was on fire.

She grabbed her two dogs and got out of the house.

Williamson said she thinks an arsonist used the contents of a nearly empty gas can to start the fire.

“It’s not the first arson-caused fire in this neighborhood. There have been so many in the past two years,” she said. “There’s no doubt in my mind but it was an arson. There was nothing out there that would have started it unless it had help.”

Williamson’s adult daughter, Marie Wright, said she saw a man earlier in the morning angrily knocking at her front door.

She didn’t answer and now wonders if he started the fire in retaliation.