Police, fire report: Unattended cooking causes house fire

An unattended pot on a stove caught fire and started a kitchen blaze this morning that caused nearly $100,000 in damage.

The fire started just before 10 a.m., at a house at 2614 N.E. Littler Way in the Ogden neighborhood.

Two teenagers home alone left a pot on the stove, which ignited some cardboard boxes on the nearby shelf, said Vancouver firefighter-spokesman Jim Flaherty.

After they were alerted, the 13-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl, children of homeowners Tracy and Lori Weedman, exited the house safely.

Firefighters arrived and contained the blaze to the kitchen, although smoke spread throughout the house. It took more than an hour to extinguish the fire, Flaherty said.

Damage was estimated at $90,000.

Scam artists try again

An 84-year-old Cascade Park woman said a telephone caller on Friday claimed to be her grandson and said he’d wrecked his car in Canada and needed money to get home.


The woman said she answered the phone and he said, “Gramma?”

She said yes and he said he was her grandson, Reid.

The “grandson” and another man with him asked her to go to Wal-Mart and wire them $7,000 in cash by MoneyGram.

When she asked for his telephone number, “He said I’ll get back to you when I get the money.”

The woman said she considered wiring some money.

“They hit those nerves and your thoughts are only in one direction, ‘Help your grandson,’ ” she said.

The callers had told her “Reid” had Allstate insurance coverage. She said she called Allstate and was told it’s a scam. Later, a neighbor said the scam was in The Columbian.

So she didn’t wire any cash.

She still doesn’t know how the callers knew she has a grandson named Reid.

Last month, two elderly women reported getting nearly identical phone calls from crooks posing as their grandsons. Neither woman wired off any money.

False alarm on overpass

At 4:10 p.m. Wednesday, emergency dispatchers radioed that a man had been seen standing on the Northeast Ninth Street bridge over Interstate 205. The caller said the man was holding a large brick that he may have been planning to hurl onto cars on the freeway below.

Washington State Patrol dispatchers said later that a trooper went to the scene. It turned out to be an official using some type of instrument to perform a survey.