Valley Fire seeks information about pallet blaze

The Spokane Valley Fire Department is appealing for information about a fire someone set April 24 in a stack of wooden pallets behind a store.

The arson was reported shortly after midnight at the Dollar Store, 15303 E. Sprague Ave. It caused little damage but much concern, according to Inspector Bill Clifford, who asked anyone with information about the fire to call 928-1700.

Clifford said the arson was counted among seven structure fires in the seven days that ended Wednesday. Overall, the department logged 181 calls in that period.

Another structure fire was reported about 8 p.m. April 24, at the Whimsical Pig Apartments, 13303 E. Mission Ave. Clifford said a pan of oil on a kitchen stove caught fire when an apartment occupant forgot about it and left the building.

The apartment sustained smoke damage and the stove and kitchen cabinets were burned, Clifford said.

He said police and the state Department of Transportation were called to follow up on an illegal fire at a transient camp on state land on the south side of Interstate 90, near the Sullivan exit.

The single hazardous-materials call, on Monday, involved a slick substance in the 4600 block of East Broadway Avenue. Clifford said a street sweeper was sent to clean up the substance, which couldn’t be identified.

Five alarm-system calls proved false or minor, and a report of a car fire was unfounded.

Calls for general service included the usual child accidentally locked in a car and kite in a power line at Pavillion Park near Liberty Lake. Clifford said the kite string slipped out of a toddler’s hand.

A utility crew was called into deal with the kite, which Clifford said posed no immediate threat.

He said the department sent an investigator to Davenport, in Lincoln County, to determine the cause of a fire that destroyed a mobile home on April 25. The mutual-aid investigation was still in progress this week.

Clifford said the department also had 156 emergency medical calls and eight vehicle accidents. The crashes sent four people to hospitals.

Three of the victims were in a small pickup truck that ran off the road in the westbound lanes of Interstate 90 near the Idaho border. All three occupants were thrown out of the vehicle when it rolled.

None of them was wearing a seatbelt, and all of them suffered serious injuries, Clifford said.

If they had obeyed the seatbelt law, “that could have prevented these serious injuries and they could have walked away,” Clifford said.