‘They died together’: Relatives remember 4 killed in deadliest Spokane house fire in 29 years

An April 20 house fire that killed a family of four is Spokane’s deadliest fire in the past 29 years. But relatives say there is comfort knowing they were all snuggled up in the same bed that night.

“Go home and love your family,” Laurence Lund said. “Because you never know when it’s going to happen.”

Laurence Lund and his wife, Bonnie Lund, are the parents of 33-year-old Arielle Desislets, who died April 21 from smoke inhalation and injuries from the heat and flames. Her husband, 40-year-old Robert “Chip” Desislets, also died in the home.

Their two children, 7-year-old Christopher and 2-year-old Aiden, both died April 24 after they were taken off life support.

The last time such a deadly fire occurred in Spokane was Oct. 28, 1995, when four young brothers died after an unattended candle started a fire at 1327 N. Adams St., according to former reporting from The Spokesman-Review. Derek Schliebe, 8, and his brothers, 6-year-old Loren, 4-year-old Steven and 2-year-old Justin, all died from smoke inhalation and burns.

The deadliest fire before 1995 was in January 1898 in an apartment building at 10 N. Post St., where 150 people were asleep when a fast-moving fire swept through the building. It killed one man, four women and three girls, the fire department’s data showed.

The day of the Desislets family fire, the Lunds were supposed to babysit the children while Arielle and Robert Desislets went grocery shopping. Instead, they spent it waiting in a hospital, Bonnie Lund said.

The family was pulled from the second floor of the burning house at 1717 N. Howard St., and CPR was performed before the victims were transported to a hospital. The Spokane Fire Department determined the cause of the fire was the use of an extension cord instead of permanent wiring near the front porch, which quickly engulfed the second story.

The cord was old, Spokane Fire spokesperson Justin de Ruyter said. Laurence Lund said the extension cord was located on the side of the house and painted over multiple times since the late ’60s, making it almost unrecognizable to his son-in-law.

Firefighters pulled the four from the same room, he said. They were having furnace problems at the time, so they all slept in one bed that night.

“For a lot of people, it’s a horrible way to die,” Laurence Lund said. “But they died together.”

That’s the one thing that brings him comfort now, he said. He knows the couple wouldn’t have been able to live without one another – they were a close-knit family who played games together, went to the park and loved to do karaoke.

“They always made sure to say, ‘I love you,’ ” Bonnie Lund said.

Arielle and Robert were married for 13 years, her parents said. The couple loved to sing so much, they made everyone else in town that did karaoke “look bad,” Laurence Lund joked. Arielle Desislets was outspoken, bold and confident. She had her master’s degree in psychology and was planning on achieving a doctorate, he said, “because she always wanted to help people.”

Her husband was “a hell of a good boy,” he added, and was kind and soft-spoken, with a good sense of humor.

“That’s why they fit like a glove together,” Bonnie Lund said.

“This isn’t because they died,” her husband chimed in. “It’s because they were actually a great couple.”

Their 2-year-old, Aiden, would often tinker with a guitar and strum some chords because he wanted to be a singer like his mom. Their 7-year-old, Christopher, picked up gaming, more like his dad.

Bonnie Lund said Christopher was so intelligent, they’d often compare him to the character Sheldon from the show “The Big Bang Theory.”

“He was kind of a computer geek at his age,” she said. “Just a very intelligent little boy.”

An outpouring of support and condolences to relatives of the Desislets following the fire has overwhelmed the family with gratitude, the Lunds said. A fundraiser on gofundme.com for funeral expenses has raised more than $18,000. Donations were pouring in from places including Switzerland, Germany and France from the Desislets’ online friends in the gaming community, too.

“Thank you to the community and the firefighters,” Laurence Lund said. “Hug your family.”