Original article at Nisqually Valley News
One structure fire, nine brush fires and 22 total calls accounted for a “top five” busiest 24-hour period for the S.E. Thurston Fire Authority on the Fourth of July, said Fire Chief Mark King.
The structure fire was reported at 203 Jefferson Ave. in Yelm at about 11:15 p.m. on July 4, amounting to a total loss of one man’s garage.
“We don’t have a cause on it yet, however it appears to have started maybe in the rough area so the initial thought was probably some kind of fireworks device that got launched from somewhere, but we don’t have that definitive proof,” King said.
The fire authority got the call at 11:18 p.m., responded in less than five minutes and received mutual aid from Lacey Fire District 3, Bald Hills Fire District 17 and East Olympia Fire District 6, King said.
“It was well-involved when we got there, so it had a pretty good head start before we got there and we are pretty close to Jefferson,” King said.
Firefighters were on the scene until about 1:30 a.m. on July 5. They were able to isolate the blaze to the 1,200-square-foot structure and kept it away from multiple other residences located 50 to 75 feet away.
In an uncharacteristically calm night for the Yelm Police Department, Sergeant Tillman Atkins said officers formed a perimeter around the property, keeping others a safe distance back so the fire authority could complete its work.
“It did not appear that anybody got hurt,” Atkins said. “There was one gentleman that was in his home, an older gentleman that was inside the house that was very hard of hearing, and the fire was getting close to his home from the garage that was on his property. Our officers actually assisted with evacuating him.”
They also went around to neighboring houses and knocked on doors to let people know what was occurring, while advising them to wait a safe distance outdoors.
The structure fire aside, King said the fire district fought nine brush fires as well, many of them believed to be fireworks-related.
“We have no definitive proof, but I would probably say yes,” King said to the question of whether fireworks had a hand in the day’s events. “It’s an extraordinary number of events in one day for us, so given the one factor, which is the dry conditions and fireworks, we’re pretty certain that’s probably a pretty big contributing factor.”
King said he doesn’t necessarily condone a ban on the use of fireworks, but said the natural consequence of such celebrations can result in fires.
“I don’t know if I’d say don’t use them at all, but I’d probably just say that really you don’t think things will catch fire this time of year, but when it’s so dry, they tend to,” he said. “It was just the right combination of things that went wrong.”
And the conditions really were a perfect storm, he said.
“We had the dry weather and we had the state reopening,” King said. “People wanted to get back together, which we understand, and there’s just a lot of celebrations and some of those, unfortunately, caused fires and in one case, an injury. … Somebody had a firework go off and they severely injured their hand.”
He said it was nice seeing people back together after so long apart. To help facilitate the safest gatherings possible, King said the fire authority made certain preparations for the holiday.
“We brought in extra crews and gassed up for it, so it wasn’t a complete shock or overwhelming event. We knew it was going to be busy,” King said.
In the end, King said things could have been a lot worse.
“Overall, the crews were happy that we didn’t lose any more homes and we’re happy we didn’t lose any lives,” King said. “Given what could have happened, with the amount of brush fires that started, none of them got away. We were able to contain them and that’s the important part. It was a long day and night for those crews.”