Lewis County Sirens.com

Firefighters this morning at the fire in Salkum. / Courtesy photo by Bob Jackson of Onalaska

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Four residents suffering from smoke inhalation and a responding firefighter who injured his leg were hospitalized after a fire broke out this morning in a Salkum home.

Some 25 firefighters from Salkum, Onalaska, Mossyrock and Lewis County Fire District 5 based in Napavine answered the 7:30 a.m. call to the residence in between U.S. Highway 12 and state Route 508.

“Don’t know what caused it, but it was a total loss, a double-wide trailer,” District 8 Assistant Chief Don Taylor said this afternoon.

Responders got the blaze under control about 11:30 a.m. and the scene was finally cleared about 2 p.m., he said.

A couple and two older teenage relatives who live there had a pair of out-of-town guests overnight, Taylor said.

He said one of the house guests was sleeping on the living room floor when she was awakened by what she thought was the sound of bacon cooking.

“She looked up and saw nobody was cooking and she could see flickering on the walls,” he said. “She opened a door – I don’t know if it was a back door or an inside door – and a ball of fire drove her back.”

Taylor said the older gentleman who lives there had severe smoke inhalation and a hand injury he thought he got trying to help the others out of the home.

A District 8 firefighter injured his leg when he fell through the floor during mop up, Taylor said.

The residence on 100 block of Maple Crest Drive is off a one-lane road with a narrower driveway so arriving fire trucks had to be stacked up along the road making fighting the fire more challenging, according to Taylor.

A car was destroyed by the fire, but a garage was spared, he said.

Taylor didn’t know all the details of how the occupants got out but said somebody had thrown a brick through a bedroom window and they were barefoot and in their night clothes at the back of the house when firefighters arrived.

“We had to bring them past the fire to get them to the ambulances,” he said. Two were carried and the others escorted, he said.

The fire department contacted the Red Cross to assist the fire victims with a place to stay.

The cause is under investigation.
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Read this morning’s news item on the fire here

Firefighters this morning at the fire in Salkum. / Courtesy photo by Bob Jackson of Onalaska

Cowlitz River Antiques, far left, and the Used Book Store, center, sustained massive damage in this morning's fire in Toledo. Timberland Bank, right, was saved.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

This was updated at 9:15 a.m.

A three-alarm fire is burning in downtown Toledo in two buildings south of Timberland Bank.

Firefighters are battling the blaze defensively at this point, Lewis County Fire District 2 Chief Grant Wiltbank said about 8:15 a.m.

It started sometime after 4 o’clock this morning, the chief said.

“It’s on the block where the bank is at and it appears to have started in the second or third floors of the adjacent properties to the south,” he said. “I’m not there.

Wiltbank spoke by telephone on his way from his job at the fire department in Gig Harbor.

Fire keeps breaking out on the upper floors, and there’s so much smoke they can’t see for a half block, he said.

Multiple agencies responded including a ladder truck from Centralia’s Riverside Fire Authority and from Castle Rock, he said.

Wiltbank said the bank appears to be safe and as he understand it, there is some smoke damage in a beauty shop, a chiropractor’s office and a lawyer’s office.

It’s near the intersection of Kellogg Way and Second Street.

“It’s a big fire, the biggest we’ve had in Toledo probably since I’ve been there,” Wiltbank said.

Crews can’t go into the buildings because of the imminent risk of roof collapse, he said.

State Route 505 is blocked off, according to Diane Wallace, secretary to Fire District 2.

“I’m watching from my office and there is a lot of very thick black smoke,” Wallace said just before 9 a.m. “The town is pretty much covered in smoke.”

Wallace has been with the district almost 30 years and said she couldn’t recall a fire of this size downtown ever. The building holds a book store and an antique store, she said.

Paramedic Kirk Johnston spent a couple of hours earlier at the Toledo fire station providing “rehab” for fire crews.

No injuries have been reported.

“Flames were coming out of the roof of the building,” Johnston said. “I could see flames as I was coming down the hill into Toledo.”

More to come

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Note: If anyone got photographs this morning, they’d like to share, please email them to sharyn.decker@lewiscountysirens.com

Foam from the fire hoses lays on the street today in front of the antique store, which houses the Logging Museum upstairs. / Courtesy photo by Carrie Kann of Toledo

The back side of the antique store building - which used to be the Masonic Building - is where most of the fire damage shows. On the left, across the narrow alley is Toledo Hardware. / Courtesy photo by Carrie Kann of Toledo

Chehalis resident Dennis P. Kelly listens to his proceedings in Lewis County Superior Court.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The Chehalis man who was cut repeatedly with a knife allegedly wielded by a neighbor on Tuesday night told police he didn’t really know what prompted the attack, according to court documents.

Wayne Reed, 44, was sitting down yelling for help when police arrived about 10:40 p.m. into his Southwest McFadden Avenue house.

Charging documents indicate he had a very large, deep laceration on his upper left arm as well as cuts on his neck, back and upper arm.

Friends he’d invited over told police 57-year-old Dennis P. Kelly who lived across the street was their suspect.

Kelly was arrested at his home that night and charged yesterday with first-degree assault.

Reed was expected to be released from Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center yesterday, according to Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher.

Kelly went before a Lewis County Superior Court judge yesterday afternoon who set bail at $50,000.

Meagher had asked for $100,000 saying there didn’t seem to be a lot of reason for the assault.

Kelly’s family had said Kelly had mental health issues and recently changed medications, Meagher told the judge. Meagher was also concerned about lots of firearms and ammunition Kelly stored in his house.

Judge James Lawler ordered Kelly to posses no firearms, consume no alcohol and not to get within 100 yards of the victim’s home if or when he bails out of jail.

Kelly could stay at his grown child’s Chehalis home – as his own house is close to the victim’s – defense attorney Bob Schroeter told the judge at the brief hearing.

Kelly lost his job at the Bradken-Atlas foundry in the industrial park a couple months ago and collects unemployment, according to Schroeter.

His only past interaction with the law was a deferred prosecution for a DUI in 1993, Schroeter said.

“Whatever happened, if it did involve alcohol use by my client is tragic and an anomaly,” Schroeter told the judge.

Charging documents, lawyers and police describe Tuesday night as one in which Reed had three or four of his male friends over, including his neighbor Kelly who he said he barely knew.

The two had some drinks and got into an argument, according to charging documents which offer the following account:

Reed told police he doesn’t know what he said, but all of the sudden Kelly attacked him. The pair wrestled and then Kelly started cutting him, saying he would kill him.

Chehalis police yesterday searched Kelly’s home, looking for one of two Spiderco brand knives Kelly said he used.

After opening his safe, they found the knives, as well as nearly two dozen firearms, including assault riffles, shotguns and an AK47, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition, reloading equipment and “pounds” of gun powder, according to charging documents.