Cheney fire department busy in 2019

It’s not quite three weeks into the new year, and already 2019 is shaping up to be a busy time for Cheney’s fire department.

Cheney Fire Chief Tom Jenkins said department personnel have already responded to four fires — including a fire on Jan. 6 that had the potential to be much more catastrophic than it turned out to be.

Local dispatch received a call at 11:51 a.m. Sunday that smoke had broken out in an apartment at 1312 1st St. The occupants said a small fire had occurred two hours before, but that they had been able to put it out with a fire extinguisher.

Jenkins said fire investigators found out later that the occupants had called dispatch earlier to report a fire they said had been caused by a friend, but didn’t provide their names or their location and had asked more insurance-related questions. The dispatcher told them they should call 911 to get fire personnel on scene to ensure the fire was out.

“They refused to provide that and hung up,” Jenkins said.

Two hours later, Cheney firefighters arriving onsite saw smoke and immediately called in a second alarm to get more resources. Two of the six apartments were occupied, and firefighters breeched the doors of the others to make sure no one was in the units.

Jenkins said firefighters were about to breech the door of the unit above the one with smoke when the occupant finally came to the door. The man had been asleep and had shut off the smoke detector in his apartment.

“Our guys essentially woke him up,” he added. “If that (fire) had been more severe, we could’ve had a fatality.”

Jenkins said battalion chief Aaron Bollar entered the adjacent apartment with a hand line and saw drywall paint bubbling on the wall where the fire was next door. Crews decided to cut the wall open to access the fire, which Jenkins said they hoped to push back toward its origin. Instead, because the unit had a sliding glass door to a balcony along 1st Street, crews threw wall material outside where other firefighters soaked it with hand lines.

Unofficially, Jenkins believes the cause of the fire was an electronically overloaded circuit in the apartment unit’s older electrical panel. There were two surge protectors that were plugged in to one 15 amp circuit in the panel. Jenkins said a 1500-watt electrical heater was sitting unplugged next two one of the surge protectors which was overloaded with other devices and had a plug end that was charred.

“They (apartment occupants) made a comment to Lt. (Jeff) Anderson that it (heater) was the only means of heat for that unit,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins said fire crews remained onsite until about 2:30 p.m. Fire department personnel were aided by two units from Spokane County Fire District 3, an engine from Medical Lake’s fire department and another from the city of Spokane, who set up at up at Cheney’s fire station to handle any other calls that might come in.

The 1st Street fire was the third of four so far this year. The fourth call was a fire on Saturday, Jan. 12, at 28 North Huron St. that came in around 1–2 a.m., resulted in minimal damage and was attributed to unattended cooking.

“It’s chalking up to be a busy year,” Jenkins said. By comparison, Cheney’s department responded to 1,508 emergency calls in 2018, a volume consisting mainly of medical incidents.

“That’s more calls than any single fire station in the city of Spokane,” Jenkins added. “We’re right up there with the big boys.”

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].