A fire heavily damaged an abandoned house on Northeast Fourth Plain Road early Friday, and investigators think a fire a transient built in the home’s fireplace started the larger blaze.
An employee at the Creekside Country Market nearby called 911 at 5:45 a.m. after he saw flames shooting from a nearby home that has been abandoned for years, Vancouver Fire Department spokesman Mark Johnson said.
Firefighters responded to the house, at 17919 N.E. Fourth Plain Road and found a fully involved structure fire, Johnson said. A crew of 18 fire personnel attacked the blaze and brought the flames under control in about 20 minutes, Johnson said.
“There are no hydrants out here, so we’ve had to use water tenders to have an adequate water supply,” Johnson said. “Traffic out here is pretty abhorrent.”
The response — four engines, three water tenders, a battalion chief and two training captains – temporarily blocked the narrow two-lane road, but the westbound lane was reopened after a few minutes, Johnson said. No injuries were reported.
“It was a challenge to put it out, because they didn’t want to put firefighters inside the structure,” Clark County Deputy Fire Marshal Curtis Eavenson said. “What they ended up doing was getting a backhoe to come in and pull the roof of it.”
Upon getting inside the house, Eavenson said he found logs set up in the home’s fireplace, and it appeared whoever set them up built a fire there, one hot enough to spark a larger fire.
County assessor’s office records list Joann Toedtli as a trustee who owns the home.
Amanda Bright, who works at the Creekside Country Market, showed up to start her workday not long after the store’s owner had reported the fire.
“Nobody’s lived in those houses for years,” she said.
Firefighters got the fire under control quickly, she said, and they were there until about 11 a.m.
“I could see flames coming out of it at 9.”
