SPOKANE, Wash. — The Spokane Police Department is still looking into who intentionally set three fires in High Bridge Park Tuesday night.
The Spokane Fire Department says it responds to several fires in that area each year.
“It’s very scary for people,” said Peyton Smith, who lives in a Browne’s Addition condo uphill from the fires. “We’ve been very lucky compared to how many residents in Spokane recently suffered tremendously beyond this, and we’d hate to see that happen to anyone else in our community at all.”
Thanks to low winds, crews put out the fires before they could spread. No homes were damaged, and nobody was evacuated.
The fire department says the High Bridge and People’s Park areas tend to be hot spots for human-caused fires, though it’s sometimes difficult to determine whether they are intentional or unintentional. The fires can also happen later in the year, rather than just the summer months.
“Even living in the city, in the core of the city, you still have to think about wildland fires and the threat from wildland fires and evacuations and all those kinds of things that, historically, hasn’t really been on our thought process, but now is,” said Justin de Ruyter, public information officer with the Spokane Fire Department.
Smith isn’t the only neighbor who is concerned.
“Arsonists set fires for a number of reasons, including to watch things burn,” said Maggie Dieter, who lives in a Browne’s Addition apartment. “If they’re watching things burn right here where there’s dry tinder and homes, we’re right on the hillside and it would be right up into our backyard.”
Police found a butane can in the area, but have not made any arrests yet or identified a suspect.
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