‘Average’ week for Valley Fire

A quiet Fourth of July set the tone for the week of July 1-7 for the Spokane Valley Fire Department.

There were only 21 calls on the Fourth of July and none of them involved fireworks, said Assistant Fire Marshal Bill Clifford. “That’s about average,” he said of the number of calls.

The department had a half-dozen fire investigators and fire marshals on patrol in Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake on Sunday. Parking on narrow roads has been an ongoing problem in Liberty Lake during the holiday, blocking emergency vehicle access. This is the first year that a permanent parking ban has been in place on some roads south of Sprague Avenue.

It had been announced before the holiday that people violating the parking restrictions would be towed, but fire marshals didn’t have to write any tickets or remove any cars, Clifford said. People quickly moved their cars when asked. “We drove that area from one end to the other nonstop just trying to keep the road open,” he said.

The most dramatic call of the week happened July 1 when a man accidentally drove into the Department of Licensing Office at 12801 E. Sprague Ave., just after 12:30 p.m. The man apparently hit the gas instead of the brake and hopped the curb, driving 30 feet inside the building.

A set of glass entry doors were destroyed and two interior walls damaged. A woman was slightly injured when she was hit by a door.

The department responded to nine fire calls, but almost all were minor. A 50-foot by 30-foot, slow-moving grass fire was reported on Dalke Avenue and was easily extinguished. A recently used lawn mower also set some items in a shed on fire.

A driver on July 1 lost his vehicle to a fire on I-90 just west of the weigh station near Stateline. “He ran into the back of a semi that was traveling slowly on the freeway,” Clifford said. The car went into the median and caught on fire. The man was able to save some belongings from his car, Clifford said.

Residents in the 8100 block of East Valleyway reported smelling a strong chemical odor just after 11 p.m. on July 1. Firefighters who responded could only smell wood smoke in the area, Clifford said.

There were 160 EMS calls included in the 206 total calls for the week.