CLARK COUNTY, WA - On Sunday morning Vancouver firefighters were dispatched to a house fire just before 6:30 am in the 200 block of Northeast 45th street after a bystander called 911 when they saw flames inside the home.
The bystander knocked on the door to alert anyone who may have been inside, but nobody answered. Firefighters arrived in just a few minutes and reported that they saw smoke and fire coming from the single-story house. The home had a basement and fire crews stretched hose lines to the back and front of the house to extinguish the fire observed in the basement and the main floor.
Firefighters noticed that there was a hole on the first floor of the house and that the stairs leading down to the basement had collapsed. These are dangerous conditions and places anyone inside of the home in extreme risk, so a decision was made for firefighters to exit the building to transition from an offensive fire strategy to a defensive strategy.
A defensive strategy means that firefighters continue to extinguish the fire while operating from the outside to reduce risks when dangerous conditions are present.
Nobody was home at the time of the fire and there were no injuries reported. The fire was under control within 45 minutes. 10 units and a total of about 23 firefighters were on scene including multiple units from CFFD 6.
