Fire damages Colfax house

Above: A total of 35 firefighters and six engine crews responded to the house fire in the 700 block of S. Main. The fire response started at 1:04 p.m. when a neighbor saw smoke and fire at the back of the house.

Below, right: Firefighters had to chop holes in the roof to get at fires in the attic of the house.

A fire Saturday afternoon destroyed most of the interior of a house on Main Street and displaced five occupants. The house at 705 S. Main is the last residence on the east side of Main before the highway curves to head for Pullman.

Fire crews received the alarm at 1:04 p.m. and smoke was pouring out of the house when they arrived.

Fire Chief Craig Corbeill credited A. J. Garcia, who resides in an apartment next to the house, with getting the occupants out.

Garcia saw smoke coming from the back of the house and went to the front door to notify the occupants, who were unaware that the back of the house was burning. They exited through the front door.

A Colfax ambulance crew, which had been out on a call, was descending the S. Main hill, and they noticed the smoke and pulled over as the occupants exited the house.

The occupants have been housed at the Best Western in Colfax.

The fire started in a northeast corner of the house near the electrical service box. The kitchen of the house and a bedroom area over the kitchen were gutted, and other parts of the house sustained extensive smoke damage.

When crews arrived at the scene a porch area on the side of the house was fully engulfed in flames, according to volunteer Randy Miller, who was incident commander. It took crews approximately an hour to get control of the fire, which moved up the walls and into the attic of the building. Fire volunteers had to climb onto the roof of the two-story house and chop holes into the roof to extinguish fires in the attic.

The fire also ignited the exterior of a garage building which was quickly extinguished.

City police and state crews restricted traffic flow on Highway 195 to two lanes to allow fire trucks to operate from the front of the residence. Also, the last block of East Thorn was blocked off to allow crews to hook up to the hydrant at the Siesta Motel corner and run a line across Thorn to the trucks.

The Colfax ladder truck was positioned behind the house in the alley between Main and Mill streets.

District crews from Albion and Steptoe also responded to the scene, along with a crew from Pullman Rural District 12. A total of 35 firefighters and six engines were on the scene, according to Chief Corbeill.

The fire was fought in sub-freezing conditions and at one point Colfax city crew members brought bags of salt to spread beneath the fire engines and the space in front of the house which had iced up during the long battle.

After crews departed the scene, an overnight watch was placed on the house, and Pullman Fire Investigator Tony Nuttman arrived to investigate Sunday morning. Nuttman today said he had to talk to two more sources before issuing a report.

Occupants seek new abode

Residents of the house were Robyn and Jeremiah Tachell, who have resided in the house for the past year. Their daughter, an eighth grader, an adult son and an adult nephew were the other residents of the house.

Robyn said they were in rooms in the basement and elsewhere in the house when they were alerted that the fire had started in the kitchen area at the back of the house.

The Red Cross provided them with funding to buy clothing and personal items, and Robyn’s sister in New Mexico rented rooms for them at the Best Western through Tuesday night, so their chief concern now is to find another place to live in town.

Robyn Tachell is employed as a cook at Whitman Health & Rehab, which maintains a care club to assist employees. Residents who want to assist the family can send donations to the Whitman Health and Rehab Care Club with a designation that it go to assist the Tachells, according to Aleshia Salter, business manager.

Robyn’s sister in New Mexico has also set up a GoFundMe account on the internet to assist the family: http://www.gofundme.com/Robyns-house-fire-total-loss.

The house is located just north of where Main Street, also Highway 195, curves to head south to Pullman. Traffic was restricted to two lanes during the long fire battle.