Fire Press Release

South Battalion House Fire

Incident #: 2012052316
Date of Incident: 12/03/2012
Issuing Officer: Bob Green/Battalion Chief

Narrative:
The Spokane City Fire Dept. dispatched fire apparatus and their crews to 2317 E. 4th Ave. at 12:20 hrs on Monday, December 3rd for a reported structure fire. As the crew from Station 7, located in the lower South East section of the City, was approaching the address they could see large amounts of black smoke in the sky and reported by radio that this was a working fire and requested an up-grade to the alarm which would bring additional resources to the incident scene. E7 arrived on the scene and reported a single story wood/frame dwelling with heavy black smoke showing from the roof and eaves of the building and immediately made a decision to make an offensive attack on the fire. As other apparatus began arriving on scene the Incident Commander started making assignments that included water supply, Safety Officer, search and rescue, fire attack, back-up hose lines to protect the fire fighters already engaged in the interior attack, vertical ventilation on the roof, horizontal ventilation at the ground floor level and the deployment of a RIT Team to be in position should the rescue of a lost or injured fire fighter become necessary. A complete search of the entire building was ordered, as per Fire Dept. policy, to ensure that there was no one inside while the simultaneous fire attack and ventilation efforts were undertaken. Fortunately the search found no victims in the building and the very hot and well-advanced fire was brought under control in about 30 minutes. Fire damage to the structure was considerable and much of the interior of the building had to be opened by the fire fighters to ensure that no fire was concealed in the walls, ceilings, and attic space. A large portion of the roof had to be opened to allow the hot, toxic gasses to ventilate into the atmosphere. The areas of the building not damaged by the fire itself were severely damaged by the heavy smoke conditions that were present. There was one reported injury to one of the fire fighters who responded to this early afternoon blaze. The fire fighter fell through a burnt out area of the floor inside the structure, the fire burning below the floor burned an area of skin on his lower leg that became exposed when his turnout pants were pushed up as his leg dropped through the floor. He was examined at the scene by AMR Para-Medics and deemed fit to return to duty at the scene. Five engines, three ladders, one Heavy Rescue Truck, and two Command vehicles responded to this incident with 34 fire fighters on scene to get the fire confined and extinguished. The Spokane Fire Dept. Special Investigation Unit has determined that the cause of the fire was an electrical malfunction inside the dwelling.



Cause:
Electrical malfunction.

Damage:
Heavy fire damage to the entire structure. Most of the interior contents were damaged either by the fire or the high heat that was present in the interior of the structure

# Firefighters Responding: 34

Dollar Loss: $ 80,000

End Of Release
For more information on this release please call (509) 625-7002