Blaze chars 9 apartments at Kelso complex
Saturday, October 9, 2004 11:55 PM PDT
By Eric Apalategui
Printable version
E-mail this articleWhen a neighbor's yelling awakened her near dawn Saturday, all Linda Roman had time to save from the flames coming up toward her Kelso apartment was her 1-pound Pomeranian puppy, Turd.
"The bathroom's gone. The bedrooms are gone. It's just a heaping disaster. The walls are down in the bedroom," said Roman, 46, a former saleswoman who said she is weeks from starting chemotherapy for leukemia. "Everything I own is ruined. I have nothing left."
Nine apartments were too damaged to allow residents back in, although not all of them were occupied at the time, firefighters said. Several residents were rendered homeless, at least temporarily. Roman, for example, paced outside the apartments in borrowed clothes Saturday morning, while Turd poked her head out from beneath a jacket in the clammy air.
The American Red Cross responded with vouchers allowing several residents to stay in motels and buy food and clothing.
A 6:47 a.m. alarm summoned firefighters to the Elliott Heights Apartments, at 206 Teresa Way, just off Minor Road in East Kelso. When they arrived, they found heavy smoke and flames pouring from several units in the building's second and third floors.
Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue investigators reported later Saturday that the fire started on or near a mattress in a vacant, first-floor apartment, where someone might have been staying without permission. It was unknown Saturday whether the fire was an accident or arson. Kelso police also were called to the scene.
The fire climbed upward and slipped into the attic spaces. Fire charred parts of at least three of the units, while smoke and water damaged others. Capt. Mark Maker of Cowlitz 2 estimated the loss at $150,000 to the building and $55,000 to its contents.
Cowlitz 2 Assistant Fire Chief Alan Headley said firefighters, especially the first crew from the Headquarters station in Kelso, "really helped prevent that fire from spreading to the rest of the apartments."
Firefighters from Longview and Castle Rock assisted firefighters from several Cowlitz 2 stations.
"That was a difficult fire," Headley said.
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