Garage burns, but firewall helps keep Sequim home intact

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 11, 2020

A firewall between a Sequim-area home and its garage helped keep the house mostly unharmed and a family safe on March 8.

Fire District 3 officials say personnel reported to the fire on the 3200 block of Old Olympic Highway just before 8 p.m. Sunday evening totaled a garage, with a structural loss estimated at $60,000 and destruction of contents worth an estimated $40,000.

The home was occupied at the time of the fire but no one was injured, fire district officials said.

The home suffered some minor damage and the owners were able to sleep in it.

“Because the fire wall between the garage and the home was intact, it did its job of creating a separation between the home and the garage, keeping the fire out of the house,” assistant chief Dan Orr said in a press release.

First arriving crews reported fire showing through the roof and extending into the attic. Crews took the heat out of the fire and extinguished the flames in the garage. A section of the ceiling was pulled in the house to ensure that there was no active fire in the attic. Personnel found smoke in the attic, Orr said, but no fire.

The investigation has begun and is ongoing, he said.

For more information, call Fire District 3’s Community Risk Reduction Division at 360-683-4242, x114.