Firefighters from several agencies battled a house fire Saturday morning in a remote area of east Vancouver, according to a press release from the Vancouver Fire Department.
At 9:15 a.m. Saturday, the department was dispatched to a house fire near the 5500 block of 199th Avenue. Due to the home’s remote location, it took firefighters nearly 10 minutes to arrive on the scene. Responding crews could see a plume of smoke from miles away, the release said.
The first arriving crews found a garage fully engulfed in flames that were spreading to the second floor. Firefighters stretched hose lines to extinguish the blaze, but a steady source of water was an issue during the initial phases of the incident. Crews from East County Fire and Rescue and Clark County Fire District 3 assisted with pumping using their large water tenders. Crews from the Camas-Washougal Fire Department also assisted.
In total, there were nine fire engines, one ladder truck, three battalion chiefs and three water tenders operating at the scene, with a total of about 36 firefighters. It took over 30 minutes for the blaze to be extinguished, the press release stated.
