Fire damages Fisher’s Landing building

Two units in an apartment building in the Fisher’s Landing neighborhood were damaged in a fire on Saturday morning.

According to Vancouver Fire Department Capt. Pete Adams, the occupant of a ground floor unit in one of the buildings at the Slate Ridge apartment complex, 3100 S.E. 168th Ave., called the fire department at 10:33 a.m. to report discoloration on the walls and ceiling around the fireplace in his unit.

Firefighters arrived at the scene and detected high heat behind the walls using a thermal camera. They removed a portion of the wall and noticed significant charring of the wood on the inside. They investigated the unit directly above the caller’s unit and found a similar situation, Adams said, with charring and some active fire in the space behind the walls near the fireplace.

The fire appeared to have spread along the length of the wooden chimney chase through both floors and up to the roof of the two-story building, Adams said. The chimney itself was a metal pipe, he said, but enclosed in the wooden chase.

“(The chimney chase) is that wooden structure that hides the chimney,” he said.

The 10 firefighters at the scene opened up additional wall sections and sprayed water inside to extinguish the fire, then stayed at the site for an additional half hour to assess the damage and help the homeowners salvage belongings.

The two units were rendered uninhabitable, displacing a total of three occupants. Adams said the apartment complex management told the fire department that they were looking into relocating the occupants to other units.