Crews rescue child, 5, from fire

Panicked family members tried to claw their way through a burning Spokane home Friday morning to rescue a 5-year-old boy trapped in the basement but were turned back each time by thick smoke and fire.

Four of them were injured in the attempts.

“I had to crawl to get to the stairs. The stairs were on fire,” said Jason Christie, a family member who lives across the street but was not injured.

In her call to 911, Patricia Christie, the boy’s aunt, screamed: “The house is on fire and there’s a baby in it. … Oh my God, he’s going to die.”

The dispatcher told her in a confident voice that firefighters would get the boy out.

Two firefighters wearing breathing apparatus worked their way into the house and descended into the pitch-black basement. Six other firefighters assisted them.

Jerryth Wade Kilmer-Butler – whom the 911 caller described as a “baby” – was carried from the basement in the protective arms of a firefighter and then revived on his way to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. He initially was in critical condition, but improved to serious condition by Friday afternoon.

Four other people, including the child’s grandmother and father, were taken to Spokane hospitals after breathing smoke in their rescue attempts.

The fire on Princeton Avenue just east of Nevada Street started about 8 a.m. in a two-story, wood-frame home built in 1909.

Two firefighters from Engine No. 15 were credited with entering the basement, said Assistant Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer, who described their work as “heroic.”

They had no time to spare. “They said it was about 30 seconds to a minute before it flashed,” he said, describing the moment when the buildup of smoke and heat erupts into roaring flame.

Working as a team, the two firefighters fought to gain access to the basement and child, while another team stood by for protection and sprayed the fire behind their escape path. A third team with four firefighters prepared hoses to extinguish the fire.

The rescuers used a thermal-imaging camera to locate the boy by his body heat.

“They said the fire was coming over them when they got out,” Schaeffer said.

The grandmother, identified as Barbara Joice, 52, was initially reported in critical condition. She was taken to Deaconess Medical Center and reportedly was stable after the fire, according to family members.

The father, Robert Butler, 33, and his fiancée were taken to Sacred Heart for treatment. Butler was treated and released.

All three adult occupants suffered from smoke inhalation.

A relative living across the street also suffered smoke inhalation in a rescue attempt. Samuel Mimms was taken to Sacred Heart.

The cause of the blaze was under investigation.

The owner of the home, Greg Joice, said he had left for work at Huntwood Industries about 4:30 a.m. and learned about the fire while at work. Robert Butler is his stepson, he said.

The Joices and Butlers are part of a large extended family in Spokane, including relatives living across the street. Mimms and the Christies are from that home.

Eight residents of the burned home were left looking for emergency housing.

Schaeffer said the flames were so hot in the home’s basement that “everything on the ceiling was melted.” The basement did not have an escape window.

Twenty-five firefighters responded to the call. It took 30 minutes to put out the fire, which destroyed the basement and caused substantial damage to the upper two floors.