{"id":4396,"date":"2011-01-09T21:39:22","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T05:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=4396"},"modified":"2011-01-09T21:39:22","modified_gmt":"2011-01-10T05:39:22","slug":"child-alerts-family-to-fire-eight-escape-burning-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=4396","title":{"rendered":"Child alerts family to fire, eight escape burning home"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"2011.0109.harms.road.fire_2\"<\/a>

A fire investigator is looking at a possible electrical issue as a cause to last night's blaze on Harms Road. \/ Courtesy photo by Ted McCarty<\/p><\/div>\n

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker
\nLewis County Sirens news reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

A 4-year-old boy is being credited with alerting family members to a fire last night in the Ethel area that destroyed the upper level of a home.<\/p>\n

Eight people were in the house on the 100 block of Harms Road and Kurt Mullins had just put his two little grandchildren, ages 4 and 5, to bed upstairs, Fire Investigator Ted McCarty said this morning.<\/p>\n

“Shortly after, the kids yelled they could smell smoke in the bedroom,” McCarty said. “He went in, found fire in a storage space, and at that point he gathered up the kids, and a couple older kids and they all got outside,” McCarty said.<\/p>\n

Lewis County Fire District 8 Assistant Chief Don Taylor today called Byron Wilson “our local hero”. Taylor didn’t have the name of the other child.<\/p>\n

A smoke alarm also went off and everyone escaped unhurt, Taylor said.<\/p>\n

McCarty described the occupants as Mullins. his wife, three children and three grandchildren.<\/p>\n

The 9 p.m. call to Lewis County Fire District 8 drew some 35 firefighters from four districts.<\/p>\n

McCarty called it a stubborn fire.<\/p>\n

When the second crew to enter the 1920s wood-frame house attempted to get upstairs, the stairwell was too hot and there was fire overhead so they had be pulled out, responders said.<\/p>\n

Taylor, the incident commander, said they sprayed about 25,000 gallons of water on the fire.<\/p>\n

The upper story was burned off and parts of it it collapsed down into the first floor.<\/p>\n

McCarty said it appeared to start in the storage area under the roof’s eves and he’s looking at an electrical issue for the cause, but has nothing concrete yet.<\/p>\n

The house is insured, he said. The Red Cross was contacted to assist the residents.<\/p>\n

Taylor said it was knocked down by 3 a.m. and the last firefighters didn’t depart until about 6:30 this morning.<\/p>\n

It’s been a record-breaking year for the Salkum area fire district as far as structure fires, Taylor said.<\/p>\n

Last month, a Christmas Day fire chased six people out of a burning mobile home on Maple Crest Drive, and the month before, firefighters spent Thanksgiving night extinguishing a blaze at Misty Morning Dairy.<\/p>\n

“Five, maybe six, would be a busy year,” Taylor said. “This past year, I think we’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of 15.”<\/p>\n

The assistant fire chief didn’t have a good idea of why so many fires, but he is concerned it won’t slow down anytime soon.<\/p>\n

“We had that earthquake and it’s guaranteed it damaged several fireplaces or chimneys” he said. “And I don’t know if people realize this.”<\/p>\n

As winter continues and folks use their fireplaces more, the creosote can be expected to keep building up, he said, and damaged masonry is vulnerable.<\/p>\n

While he isn’t pointing to that as a cause of the Harms Road blaze, Taylor said the bricks in portions of the chimney there were packed with the flammable material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker Lewis County Sirens news reporter A 4-year-old boy is being credited with alerting family members to a fire last night in the Ethel area that destroyed the upper level of a home. Eight people were in the house on the 100 block of Harms Road and Kurt Mullins had just put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10],"class_list":["post-4396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story","tag-by-sharyn-l-decker","tag-news-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4396"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4399,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396\/revisions\/4399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}