[1]Smoke billows from two-story residence along Pennsylvania Avenue early this morning / Courtesy photo by Cara Ebeling
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Crews spent all night battling a house fire in Chehalis.
Nobody was hurt, but the estimated $70,000 in damage means probably the two-story home will have to be rebuilt, according to the Chehalis Fire Department.
Fire Capt. Kevin Curfman said they were dispatched just after midnight to the 700 block of Northwest Pennsylvania Avenue at Vine Street.
“The renters were just getting home, heard a detector, opened the door and saw smoke,” Curfman said. “They believed it was in the bathroom area.”
The arriving crew observed a heavy smoke column and just a little bit of flames showing from the eves, he said.
They found no flames inside and began to put people on the roof, but it began sagging and they had to be pulled off, Curfman said.
It turned out the fire was in a dead space behind a “knee wall,” Curfman said. It was attacked by cutting access holes on the gable ends of the building, he said.
Firefighters were joined by members of Lewis County Fire Districts 6 and 5, Riverside Fire Authority out of Centralia and West Thurston Regional Fire Authority from Rochester, he said.
“It was very stubborn, but eventually we got it extinguished,” he said.
Curfman estimates about half the residents’ contents could be salvageable.
Fire Investigator Ted McCarty said the cause is under investigation.