Smoke sets off school alarm
A smoke detector inside the McDonald Elementary gymnasium detected a fire outside the building last Saturday.
Deputy Fire Marshal Bill Clifford said firefighters who responded about 12:45 a.m. found someone had ignited a pile of pine needles and branches outside the school at 1512 S. McDonald Road.
The alarm was triggered when smoke seeped into the gymnasium.
Clifford said damage was limited to about $100 in scorched paint on the gymnasium’s cinderblock exterior wall.
He appealed for anyone with information about the arson to call fire investigators at 928-1700.
The incident was among nine automatic alarms and 203 calls overall to which firefighters responded in the seven days that ended Wednesday. The other alarm-system calls were false or minor.
Eight structure fires were minor and what was reported as a trash fire turned out to be a barbecue, Clifford said.
He said two reports of brush fires involved illegal fires at a transient camp and at a home where a resident was burning yard waste.
“The persons were educated and instructed to extinguish their fires,” Clifford said.
The only hazardous-materials call was to the Spokane Valley Library shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday.
Library officials evacuated the building when some patrons thought they smelled natural gas. The building reopened about a half-hour later when an Avista crew determined there was no gas leak.
The most serious of 24 vehicle accidents occurred about 5:50 a.m. Wednesday when a car struck two pedestrians who were crossing Mallon Avenue at Evergreen Road.
Police said the couple suffered injuries that weren’t life threatening when a 19-year-old motorist turned onto Mallon from Evergreen. Officers said Kelly J. Coburn had been drinking, and booked him into jail on two counts of vehicular assault.
Firefighters rounded out the week with 156 emergency medical calls and two calls for general service involving children.
They successfully rescued a 1-year-old boy from his grandmother’s locked car on Nov. 13. Two days later, they dealt with two young children who decided to play in the street while their father slept.
Clifford said a motorist stopped at Station 7, 1121 S. Evergreen Road, about 9:40 a.m. to report that two 3- to 4-year-old children were playing in the roadway at 15th and Evergreen.
The woman said she knocked on the door at the children’s home in the 13900 block of East 16th Avenue but got no response.
Clifford said firefighters told the children to go in the house and get their father, but they said they couldn’t wake him up.
Then firefighters called police, who awakened the dad after going in the house to make sure he was OK. Clifford said the father told police he was unaware his children were playing in the street.