A fire that ignited in a shed, leapt up a tree and spread to a nearby house caused an estimated $25,000 in property damage Sunday morning in Vancouver.
Nicole Gannon, a resident of the Shumway-neighborhood home, said she had been cleaning out the shed that morning when she stepped away to have a cigarette. When she was done, she returned to the shed, bent down to unplug a laptop and saw the fire out of the corner of her eye.
Gannon said the flames spread quickly, and she tried to put the fire out with a garden hose, “but there wasn’t enough water pressure.”
That’s when she called 911.
Gannon’s son, Allen Machia, said he was asleep inside the house when the fire started, but awoke to a commotion. When he came outside, he said he could see a large fir tree beside the house covered in flames, and “you could hear explosions” from what he presumed were some of the family’s gas-powered toy cars igniting.
Firefighters were dispatched to the house, 601 E. 30th St., at 9:24 a.m. It took them less than 10 minutes to extinguish the flames, said Lead Deputy Fire Marshal Chris Drone of the Vancouver Fire Marshal’s Office.
Nobody was injured.
Although the outside of the house caught fire, the residence did not sustain enough damage to become uninhabitable, Drone said.
Later in the morning, Drone surveyed the damage as Gannon and Machia watched. A charred frame of the shed remained intact, and its floor was littered with a few destroyed items, including what appeared to be a mattress. The east side of the house was burned.
Gannon said she wasn’t sure what started the fire. Machia guessed it could have been the space heater that Gannon had turned on in the shed that morning.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, Drone said Sunday morning.
Gannon said the house is a rental home. Clark County property records show it is owned by Leslie and Mark Stolle.
