SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — A massive fire consumed a big part of an apartment building at Eagle Rock Apartments on Sunday, drawing the attention of drivers on I-90 as firefighters battled the blaze for hours.
Spokane Valley Fire Department says the fire started on the back exterior of the building, but they say, they still do not know what caused it. They also mention the apartment had sprinklers on the inside of the building — which helped the fire from spreading inwards — but there were no sprinklers on patios or balconies.
They say when the Eagle Rock Apartments were built, sprinkler systems on the outside parts of the building were not required by code. However, fire safety regulations have since evolved to require them in multi-family residential units.
“In the late 90’s they made it code that you had to sprinkle multi-family units,” said Brett Anderson, chief of prevention for the Spokane Valley Fire Department, during a press conference held Monday. “That helped cut down greatly on large loss fires because sprinklers worked. They didn’t necessarily require them on balconies or patios until later and this [apartment] was in that early stage that missed that mark.”
Austin Catron, who lives at Eagle Rock Apartments in a unit south of where the fire occurred, says his front door suffered damaged. “It got so hot that the siding melted,” Catron said.
Catron says him and his girlfriend were given the clear to return to their apartment around 7 p.m. Sunday evening. Tenants of the building that burned down are required to show proof that they live there in order to access the burned building, and that is being handled by the fire department.
Despite the scale of the fire and the hours required to extinguish it, SVFD says there were no injuries.
“Just be thankful for what you have, I suppose,” Catron said. “You can never know when something tragic is going to happen.”
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