Lessons learned from Monday night fires in Yakima

Yakima firefighters battled two small, unrelated fires Monday night and early this morning, one of which served as a reminder about the importance of having a working smoke detector. There were no injuries from either blaze.

About 10:30 p.m. Monday in the 800 block of North 40th Avenue, firefighters responded to a report of smoke in a mobile home. They entered the home and quickly extinguished a fire in cabinets under the kitchen sink.

The occupants, who were in the rear bedroom, were alerted by a smoke detector in the front of the mobile home.

"Having a working smoke detector reduces one's chances of dying in a fire by nearly half," said Battalion Chief Tom Sevigny. Smoke detectors should be replaced if they are more than 10 years old.

Sevigny said the fire apparently started after someone emptied an ash tray into the trash under the sink earlier in the evening. Cabinets and plumbing were ruined and there was smoke damage throughout the home for an estimated loss of $2,000.

In the other fire, the lesson was that garden hoses aren't very effective. About 2:20 a.m., passers-by alerted occupants of a home in the 1200 block of South Third Avenue of a fire in the backyard. A small outbuilding was engulfed in flames and threatened a nearby garage.

Firefighters arrived to find the occupants using garden hoses to keep the fire from spreading, but they weren't successful. Crews extinguished the fire with relatively minor damage to the garage. The outbuilding was destroyed. Damage totaled about $2,500.

- Leah Beth Ward

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