Harsh weather bursts pipes

Spokane Valley firefighters probably spent more time getting water out of buildings than putting it on them in the past week.

A flood of broken fire-sprinkler pipes and domestic water lines contributed to what Fire Marshal Kevin Miller described as “about as big a week as I’ve ever seen.”

One man got the worst of both worlds, destroying his mobile home with a smoky fire while thawing a frozen pipe with a torch.

Miller said the man was working on a pipe under the home at 19625 E. Wellesley Ave. about 5 p.m. Sunday when the fire occurred. Because the pipe remained frozen, cutting off all water to the home, there was no way for the man to fight the fire.

“But he was able to get his wife and daughter and dog out,” Miller said.

In the reporting period that ended Wednesday night, the Spokane Valley Fire Department responded to 301 calls.

Curiously, Miller said, only about 55 percent of the calls were for emergency medical service. That’s “way down,” he said. Usually, EMS calls account for 75 to 80 percent of the total.

Another thing Miller found odd: So many water pipes flooding buildings in the middle of a cold snap. Typically, ice-ruptured pipes are discovered after a warm spell thaws them, he said.

Miller said firefighters responded to 20 broken pipes from Sunday through Wednesday. And another call came in Thursday night after the weekly reporting period ended.

Thursday’s call was to the Peppertree Inn at 1816 N. Pepper Lane in Liberty Lake. A line above the motel’s indoor swimming pool broke, forcing closure of the pool but no evacuation.

Some residents of the half-dozen apartment buildings in which fire-sprinkler pipes burst weren’t so fortunate. Miller estimated that six families were displaced, either to other apartments in the buildings or to temporary housing provided by the Red Cross.

Three families were forced out of their units in the Rosevue Apartments at 15620 E. Valleyway Ave. when a third-floor sprinkler line burst Wednesday. The Red Cross relocated all of them, Miller said.

An apartment building at 113 S. Havana St. was the first, on Sunday, to be damaged by broken sprinklers.

Next came the Broadway Court Estates, 13505 E. Broadway Ave., and the River Rock Apartments, 12721 E. Shannon Ave., on Monday.

The Rosevue and the Catherine Johnson apartments, at 6321 E. Fourth Ave., rounded out the list on Wednesday.

Inadequate insulation may have contributed to some of the apartment incidents, and Miller said his staff will be checking for possible code violations.

He said some of the lines that broke were for exterior sprinklers on balconies.

“If they don’t get insulated right, they will break,” Miller said. “That didn’t happen in all of them, but I know it happened in a few of them.”

At the Broadway Court, River Rock and Rosevue apartments, balcony sprinkler lines broke at the point where diaphragms separated exterior sections, filled with an inert gas, from water-charged interior sections, Miller said.

He said such problems tend to be caused by inadequate insulation or pipes of the wrong length, but “I wouldn’t blame it on the sprinkler installers.”

Many of the problems may simply be caused by unusual weather, Miller said.

While some of the apartment buildings are relatively new, Miller said a strip mall at 15412 E. Sprague Ave., at Sullivan Road, apparently has had no problems in two decades of cold weather – until Tuesday.

“It’s not supposed to happen, but it does,” Miller said.

A sprinkler system in the eaves of the mall’s Mansard-style roof burst, drenching the Amalfi Greek/Italian Ristorante with an inch of water. The water also damaged the Rockwood Clinic branch next door to the restaurant and spilled onto the parking lot, creating an instant skating rink.

He estimated damage at $5,000 to $6,000, including cleanup and repairs.

At the strip mall as well as the apartment complexes and other “commercial” buildings in which fire sprinklers are required by law, owners must have security guards or someone with a cell phone patrol the properties round the clock until the sprinkler systems are repaired.

In most cases, repairs are completed within hours, Miller said.

Two care centers for the elderly also were damaged by broken sprinkler pipes: Orchard Crest, 222 S. Evergreen Road, on Monday night, and Good Samaritan, 17121 E. Eighth Ave., on Wednesday.

The Good Samaritan break was in a maintenance area, so no evacuation was required. No information was available on whether anyone was dislocated at Orchard Crest, where firefighters helped remove water with squeegees.

Two Central Valley schools, McDonald Elementary and Greenacres Elementary, had minor water damage when sprinkler systems broke on Sunday and Tuesday.

In addition to 13 broken sprinkler pipes, firefighters responded to seven domestic water lines that burst. In two cases, Miller said firefighters had to help residents find their water shutoff valves.

Leaving some water running may keep a domestic water line from freezing, but preventive measures are more limited for sprinkler systems. Miller suggested opening the doors to sprinkler control rooms to keep them warmer. Heat will radiate down the pipes, he said.

Miller said the temperature in the sprinkler control room of the damaged strip mall at Sprague and Sullivan was only about 40 degrees when he checked.

Some people put heaters into control rooms, but Miller cautioned against portable space heaters that can overheat their surroundings or be forgotten. He recommends installing a permanent heater.

If pipes do freeze, Miller said, “thaw them with a hair dryer or heat tape or that type of thing, but never use a torch.”

There were nine structure fires in the seven days ending Wednesday, including a chimney fire that spread to an attic and a fire in an electrical outlet that burned a wall.

Water ran down the outside of a house at 10307 E. Cimmaron Drive and shorted out an exterior outlet Tuesday, causing about $500 damage to a garage wall, Miller said.

Also on Tuesday, a house at 11300 E. 10th Ave., sustained an estimated $10,000 damage when a cardboard box of fireplace ash ignited a deck and the fire spread into the attic.

“Even if you think the coals are out, they’ll sit there and smolder,” Miller said.

Use a metal bucket for ash, and keep it away from combustible materials, he advised.

Thirty-six vehicle accidents also kept firefighters busy, but 26 of them didn’t cause injuries. Most involved vehicles sliding on snow and ice.

Miller said a whopping 60 traffic accidents were reported Wednesday alone, but many were minor and didn’t require a fire department response.

Throughout the week, nine people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries and one man suffered major injuries. Miller said the most serious accident resulted in head and chest injuries when a vehicle rolled over in the 4200 block of South Driftwood.

There were 20 calls from commercial alarm systems, but no fires. In one case, though, Lakeside Recovery, 9415 E. Trent Ave., was filled with smoke when a microwave oven caught fire.

Also, Miller said, there were 10 calls about residential smoke detectors and two concerning carbon monoxide detectors. One of the carbon monoxide alarms was caused by a bad battery, but there was a “slight” problem in the other case, Miller said.

Such carbon monoxide problems typically are caused by furnaces in need of service, he said. Dust spread by furnaces may have accounted for some of the smoke detector alarms, Miller said.

He recommended occasional use of a vacuum cleaner to suck dust out of smoke detectors.

Three other furnace problems involved fans seizing up for lack of maintenance, Miller said.

A house fire apparently was narrowly averted Monday at 3000 S. Clinton St. Although there was no fire when firefighters arrived, the owner reported that his freestanding metal fireplace had gotten cherry red, Miller said.

Also Wednesday, firefighters were called to put out a car fire set by a suspect who led police on a chase before abandoning the vehicle near Flora and Pit.