Neighbors watched as firefighters battled a house fire on Saturday afternoon in Chehalis. / Courtesy photo by Teresa Steffens
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The top floor of a Chehalis home was destroyed by fire on Saturday, but no one was hurt.
The cause remains under investigation.
Firefighters called just before 3 p.m. found fire coming out windows and the roof ridge vent of the house on the 700 block of Southwest Chehalis Avenue, according to the Chehalis Fire Department.
“About an hour before, he was upstairs putting up dry wall and was taking a break on the front porch reading a book,” Firefighter-investigator Jay Birley said.
“The cause? I got no idea,” Birley said.
It wasn’t safe to go into the area where he thinks it might have began, Birley said, as he could fall through the floor.
Chehalis firefighters were assisted by crews from Centralia and Lewis County Fire District 6. Riverside Fire Authority Chief Jim Walkowski took over as incident commander as Chehalis’s fire chief as not in town, according to Birley.
While the upstairs was destroyed, a lot of the belongings of the the couple who lives there with a baby were saved, according to Birley.
“They got a lot of their stuff out, it was wet,” he said.
Firefighters put water and foam onto a burning Chehalis Avenue house. / Photo by Branden Willson
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter