Firefighters attack blaze in downtown Oakville on Tuesday night. / Courtesy photo by Shannon Abbott Olson
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A fire possibly caused by fireworks swept through a former hardware store and two other buildings in the center of Oakville last night and closed the highway for several hours.
Nobody was hurt but the only structure still standing on that side of the block is the tavern, according to Grays Harbor Fire DIstrict 1 Firefighter Shawn Burdett.
The fire department was dispatched at 10:03 p.m. for a structure fire possibly ignited by fireworks on U.S. Highway 12 – also known as Pine Street at that point – near Newton Street, according to authorities.
Burdett said they arrived to find the building fully engulfed in flames and called for mutual aid.
“It was so much black smoke,” said Cassie Henry who has lived in the town her entire life.
Henry said she had been watching the fireworks display at the reservation when a column of dark smoke from downtown drew her and many others away from the show and to the sidewalks where they watched the blaze.
The hardware store her dad’s good friend owned when she was a kid was burning, she said.
“It felt like we lost a community member, to be honest,” Henry said. “We’re going to miss looking at that building.”
Burdett said the old liquor store on one side and the little house on the other side were also a total loss.
The Washington State Department of Transportation put a detour in place, closing the highway in both directions until about 7 o’clock this morning.
District 1 was joined by crews from Grays Harbor Fire DIstrict 5, West Thurston Regional Fire Authority and also Riverside Fire Authority out of Centralia.
“With the help of many, many brave men and women, we got the fire out,” Burdett stated in a message earlier today, and thanked the neighboring fire departments for their assistance.