By BECKY THOMAS
Staff Reporter
Contractors welding a gate for the Cheney School District's satellite site on Andrus Road caused a 4.5 acre brush fire Thursday, Sept. 6.
Despite dry and windy conditions, the fast-moving fire was contained before it could damage nearby buildings thanks to a multi-agency effort.
The fire broke out shortly after 2 p.m., when workers from Northwest Fencing saw their welding equipment spark a fire in the grass surrounding the gate at 12414 S. Andrus Road. According to school district maintenance and operations director Jeff McClure, the crew was there to fix the gate that had been damaged by a semi truck earlier in the summer.
Though the workers had fire extinguishers, the fire quickly spread beyond their control, and Spokane County Fire District 3 crews were called.
Deputy Chief Brian Anderson was in charge of the crews from the fire district. As they approached the scene from Cheney, Anderson said he knew they would need backup.
“I added a second alarm to it right away when I saw the smoke column,” he said.
Anderson said the fire was quickly driven by wind to the northwest, but its progress was impeded by a fire plane that had just filled its tank with fire retardant gel in Deer Park and responded to the two-alarm call. The plane made three sweeps of the fire, one with the gel and two more with water from nearby lakes. Anderson said the fast response was good luck for crews on the ground.
Over the course of an hour, the fire brought 18 trucks from the fire district, one from the city of Cheney, three from the Department of Natural Resources and one from Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge.
Anderson said they used Andrus Road and the driveway to the school district site as “anchors” to fight the fire, and crews lined up to knock down the fire as they arrived.
“Every time we had a need, we had the resources to fill the need,” he said.
Initially Anderson said he was concerned with the fire's threat to nearby homes. He was able to call a local farmer to disc a line in a field to protect homes that were half a mile from the scene, but the fire didn't reach that far.
Crews had the fire knocked down within an hour, and completely contained within two hours, Anderson said.
The outcome could have been a lot worse, Anderson said, but quick responses and cooperation, as well as luck—the fire was next to the road, making it easy to access—helped to minimize the effects of the fire.
“It went very smooth,” he said.
As dry conditions continue, another spark set off a smaller fire next to the Cheney Free Press office on First Street, just inside the Cheney city limits, Sunday afternoon.
Anderson said sparks from a utility pole set off the fire, which burned less than an acre of grass, around 3 p.m. Sunday. Cheney and fire district crews quickly controlled the blaze.
Becky Thomas can be reached at [email protected].
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