Fire badly damages Rose Village home

A two-alarm fire heavily damaged a house in Vancouver’s Rose Village neighborhood Wednesday.

The fire, reported at about 11:40 a.m., tore through the two-bedroom ranch house at 3111 U St.

Katie Raetz, 37, lives in a nearby house and saw the flames from her living room and kitchen windows. At first, she thought it was someone burning yard debris.

“I saw the flames shooting up … It took me a minute until I realized, OK, that’s not right,” she said.

She called 911 and ran to the duplex next door to tell her neighbors inside to get out of the house.

“(The fire) was really close to the house, so I wanted to make sure they were awake,” Raetz said.

She said that when she was calling 911, a city worker passed by and stopped to help by kicking in the door to the residence to check if anyone was inside.

No one was home at the time of the blaze, fire officials said.

Arriving firefighters from the Vancouver Fire Department found fire throughout the structure, said Capt. John Bulder.

Crews attempted to enter the house, Bulder said, but firefighters determined it would not be safe and pulled back into a defensive strategy, using a water cannon and handheld hoses to apply water from the outside.

A few minutes later, they called for a second alarm, bringing more crews to the scene to help with the fire suppression.

Smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the air, and one Vancouver Police Department officer reported seeing a smoke plume from state Highway 500.

Crews stayed on scene to put out hot spots and mop up the scene for at least an hour after the fire was first reported.

Suspected cause

Investigators weren’t able to conduct a full investigation because the structure was compromised and unsafe to enter, according to Vancouver Fire Marshal Heidi Scarpelli. The home was built in 1934, according to county property records, which listed Scott Weston as the owner.

Investigators estimated the damage to the home and its contents at $300,000.

Scarpelli said the fire was sparked unintentionally, most likely in a wood fireplace that was left unattended and had been burning treated wood. Treated woods, such as chipboard, plywood and painted wood contain binders, glue and other chemicals that burn a lot hotter than natural, seasoned wood, she said.

“Fireplaces aren’t meant to be utilized like that,” Scarpelli said.

People should be home when burning any kind of fire, she said. In some cases, a small ember can shoot out of the fireplace and land on the floor or on some nearby combustible item. If no one’s around to smother it, the ember can burn and ignite a significant house fire.

“When you’re cooking, you need to be at the stove. When you light a candle, you need to be in the room,” Scarpelli said. “You’re increasing the risk when you’re not there to mitigate it early if there’s some kind of problem.”