Fire investigators determined a Saturday morning garage fire in Battle Ground was accidentally sparked when a wall heater set some plastic storage containers on fire.
The fire was reported at 1:10 a.m. Saturday at 315 N.W. Ninth St. Firefighters from Clark County Fire & Rescue found fire in an attached garage that they put out before it could spread to the house. A family of four got out of the house unharmed. Clark County Fire District 3 and the Vancouver Fire Department assisted.
The fire started in a storage room inside the garage, according to the Clark County Fire Marshall’s Office. A stack of plastic storage bins were up against a heater that turned on and melted the bins. The fire caused an estimated $80,000 damage to the garage and its contents.
People should be careful about storing things near heat sources, said Deputy Fire Marshal Ken Hill. As the weather gets colder, he said, more people are using their heaters; that can be problematic if things were kept near them in the summer while the heat was turned off. Some heaters automatically turn on when the room’s temperature drops to a certain level.
