Dustina Haase-Lanier is comforted by family friend Julie Wimber, left, after her apartment caught fire at the Cascadia Village apartment complex this morning.
Vancouver firefighters quickly doused a fire in the kitchen of a Five Corners-area apartment Thursday morning.
Emergency personnel were dispatched at 8:49 a.m. to Cascadia Village, 9600 N.E. 73rd St., which is just west of Northeast Covington Road.
The two people inside the apartment, Dustina Haase-Lanier and her wife, Jennifer Lanier, had evacuated themselves by the time emergency personnel arrived. Firefighters knocked down the blaze within minutes, Vancouver Fire Capt. Joe Yela said.
Damage was contained to the stove, Yela said, though there may be some smoke damage.
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“We moved in a week and a half ago,” Haase-Lanier said. Boxes were still in the kitchen and they hadn’t used their stove yet, so the couple didn’t know what would have sparked the fire. “We had stuff everywhere,” she said.
They had gotten their two sons ready for school by 7 a.m. and then both gone back to sleep. They woke to the smell of smoke.
Haase-Lanier, who uses a wheelchair, quickly got ready and grabbed the family Dachshund Miles.
“It was terrifying,” she said. “There were flames all over the kitchen.”
A fire marshal was called to investigate the cause of the fire. A preliminary indication was that the fire may have started by something being left on the stove, Yela said.
Cascadia Village is owned by Affordable Community Environments, a nonprofit agency that operates several housing complexes in Clark County. ACE’s tenants have limited means and benefit from lower-than-market rents.
Cascadia Village has 51 units. It opened in 2003.
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