Officials narrow cause of CdA fire

A lighted candle, electrical problems and a plug-in air freshener are among the possible causes for a Sunday night fire that razed storefronts in downtown Coeur d’Alene.

“Nothing led us to believe it was a suspicious cause,” said Glenn Lauper, Coeur d’Alene’s deputy fire chief.

The blaze started in a 10-foot-by-10-foot storage area at the Gamer’s Haven. Numerous items at the scene could have been responsible for the fire that destroyed the game store, connected apartments and the Twelve Ten tavern. Two other storefronts had smoke damage.

The smell of cigarette smoke from the tavern bothered the owner of Gamer’s Haven, who had left an unattended burning candle in the storage area to combat the odor, according to Lauper. The store’s owner, Russ Pickup, left the building about 30 minutes before the fire was reported at 5:28 p.m.

The storage room also contained a type of air freshener that had been recalled by the manufacturer, along with paints and solvents, battery chargers, electrical strips and an electrical panel. Fuses of the wrong amp size were plugged into the electrical panel, Lauper said.

All of the items are “fairly competent” ignition sources, he noted.

Investigators finished their on-scene work at 1 p.m. Wednesday without naming a cause for the fire.

The 1910 structure that housed Gamer’s Haven and eight apartments was insured for $425,000, and the game store carried an additional insurance policy of $100,000, according to Lauper.

The Twelve Ten tavern was part of an adjoining building, which only had liability insurance.