Fire crews attend to ruptured gas line

Avista Corp. followed its own advice about calling before digging, but still ruptured one of its own natural gas mains Tuesday, creating one of the Spokane Valley Fire Department’s bigger challenges in the past two weeks.

Deputy Fire Marshal Bill Clifford said firefighters were called to 11504 E. Frederick Ave. shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday when an Avista backhoe operator broke a small stub line protruding from an 8-inch, high-pressure gas main.

He said firefighters knocked on 10 to 15 doors in the area, evacuated three people and stood by until the main was repaired about 7 p.m.

Randy Chandler, Avista’s Washington-Idaho gas operations manager, said an Avista crew found a small leak at the intersection of Frederick and Bowdish during a routine inspection as part of a street-paving project. While digging to investigate the leak, a backhoe operator accidentally broke a 2-foot-long, 2-inch diameter line that extended horizontally from the main.

The stub apparently had been installed years ago for a possible future line to serve houses. It was too small to be found with detection equipment or to be recorded in the hand-drawn maps that were prepared when the main was put in the ground, Chandler said.

In recent years, computer technology has allowed more detailed maps that include stubs. Also, Chandler said such anomalies now are marked with buried transmitters.

He said the stub was removed, but a fixture that was installed 300 feet upstream to shut off the gas main during the repairs was mapped and marked with a softball-size transmitter that’s supposed to last indefinitely.

Chandler said the gas vented for 5 3/4 hours, but “was never even close” to the concentration that would allow it to ignite. He said Avista employees monitored gas levels at the break and checked nearby homes before allowing residents to enter them.

None of the gas collected in homes, Chandler said.

Allowing the gas to flow until a “top stopper” fixture could be installed – instead of shutting it off at three “regulator stations” – kept several hundred customers from losing service, Chandler said.

The incident was one of 429 calls to which the fire department responded in the fortnight that ended Wednesday.

There were 17 structure fires in the period, three of which were “fairly serious,” Clifford said.

The first was on May 20 at 11107 E. Fourth Ave. No one was home when an electric massage pad on a chair caused a fire that damaged a bedroom, Clifford said.

The second fire was last Saturday at 15205 E. Upland Drive, where combustibles stored on top of a gas water heater were ignited by the flu. The fire shortly after midnight caused “pretty good damage” in the basement, but two occupants escaped injury.

Clifford said two fire detectors in the home had been removed or disabled because of nuisance alarms from cooking fumes or water vapor from a bathroom.

“The only thing that woke those people up that night was their dog barking, so they were pretty lucky,” Clifford said.

Hence this week’s safety tip: Relocate smoke detectors to prevent false alarms, but leave the batteries in them. Check the batteries monthly and replace them annually, Clifford advised.

The third serious house fire, on Wednesday at 7919 E. Carlisle Ave., was a gasoline-fueled arson, Clifford said. One of the homeowners was arrested on suspicion of first-degree arson. The suspect and his wife, who wasn’t home at the time, were uninjured.

Thirty vehicle accidents in the two-week period sent eight people to hospitals with neck and back injuries.

A 31st accident Wednesday morning was fatal to Doean L. McDaniel, 70. Sheriff’s deputies said her 40-year-old son, who was a passenger, suffered minor injuries.

McDaniel’s 1997 Buick Skylark was struck broadside by a Waste Management garbage truck at Argonne Road and Upriver Drive, and firefighters had to cut the car apart to remove McDaniel.

Clifford said firefighters prepared to rescue a man who was spotted in the Spokane River near Sullivan Road, clinging to branches and calling for help, but he got out on his own after being swept more than a quarter-mile downstream. No information was immediately available on how the man entered the river.

Other calls in the two-week period included six “brush-type” fires, mostly illegal or out-of-control burning; four reports of vehicle fires, two false and two minor; 19 automatic alarms, all either false or burned food; 340 medical emergencies; and four requests for general service, including a broken sprinkler pipe and three children accidentally locked in cars.