Tour Commander, 509.625.7100
Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 9:02 a.m.
At 0719 on the morning of May 29 2022, the Spokane Fire Department's fire communications center received a direct call from a passing American Medical Response unit reporting smoke coming from a house on the 400 block of South Freya Street. An alarm for a structure fire was toned out and units from the Spokane Fire Department quickly responded with the first unit arriving on scene in under three minutes
Upon arrival, smoke was seen coming from the back of the structure and the incident was upgraded to a working fire. Crews made entry into the structure and attacked the flames knocking them down in just under six minutes. The structure, while a house, was actually an antiques store and unoccupied at the time. The owners of the business were alerted to the smoke by a Ring Camera activation alert and arrived on scene while crews were overhauling the structure.
Due to the awareness of the AMR crew that saw the smoke and reported the fire along with the rapid response of SFD crews, the fire area was contained to the kitchen. There was smoke damage to the first floor of the structure as well as a melted PEX line that resulted in flooding of the basement. An SFD crew recognized the flooding while conducting a rapid search of the basement and secured the water to prevent further damage.
27 SFD personnel navigated the road construction at the base of the South Hill to make a quick stop on the fire. There were no injuries to civilians, however one firefighter suffered a laceration requiring sutures. The cause of this early morning incident remains under investigation by the Spokane Fire Department's Special Investigation Unit.
