Hazel Dell apartment blaze displaces woman, two children

A woman and two children were displaced Monday evening when a fire started in a bedroom of their apartment on Northeast Hazel Dell Avenue.

Vancouver firefighters were dispatched to the Arnada Pointe Apartment Homes, 4820 N.E. Hazel Dell Ave., at 7:18 p.m. A woman and two children who were inside left the apartment after smelling smoke, said Kevin Stromberg, firefighter-paramedic for the Vancouver Fire Department.

When crews arrived, they found heavy smoke coming from under the door of the first-floor apartment.

Firefighters quickly put out the bedroom fire before it had a chance to spread to the rest of the structure. The occupants had shut the bedroom door as they exited, which helped to contain the fire and prevent it from spreading, Stromberg said. The closed door cut off oxygen in the room and left the fire with no pathway to grow.

It’s “definitely easier for the fire to spread when it has no barriers to burn through,” Stromberg said.

Neighboring apartments were evacuated as 17 firefighters from the Vancouver Fire Department and Fire District 6 fought the blaze. However, no other apartments were damaged.

Red Cross assisted the residents, who were not allowed back into their apartment Monday night. The cause has not yet been determined. The Vancouver Fire Marshal’s Office arrived around 8 p.m. and is investigating.

Arnada Pointe was built and is managed by Holland Residential, which operates four other apartment complexes in Vancouver.