Although extreme weather in 2021 had fire officials across the country holding their breaths, local fire marshals said they feel the area benefitted from preventive and educational efforts that made for a fairly average fire year. Vancouver Fire Marshal Heidi Scarpelli said her office investigated 276 fires in 2021, about 100 more than the year prior. She attributed some of that to the area’s growing population. The Clark County Fire Marshal’s Office investigated 149 fires in 2021. Three people died in fires in unincorporated Clark County, all from accidental fires, county Fire Marshal Dan Young said. His office also documented more than $6 million in fire damages last year, which was a conservative estimate. “Each one of these fires affect people’s lives,” he said. “It’s a traumatic event every time.” Of the 276 fires the Vancouver Fire Marshal’s Office investigated last year, 97 were ruled accidental, 159 were ruled incendiary — or arson — and the cause of 20 fires was undetermined.

Of the county’s fire investigations, 96 fires were ruled accidental, 25 arson and 28 were undetermined. Young said arson accounting for about 20 percent of the fires is about average. Fifty-six of the fires were electrical; he reminded people to secure heat lamps for animals and not to leave batteries plugged in overnight. Scarpelli said the biggest spike she saw in the city was in transient-related fires. She said those fires are particularly challenging because they’re often in obscured areas that are difficult for firefighters to reach, and the people are usually gone by the time crews arrive. She noted about 33 percent of all fires investigated within the city were preventable, caused by things such as unattended cooking, cigarettes and candles. Those are the fires investigators focus their outreach efforts on, in hopes of eliminating them. Her office’s Project HomeSafe efforts were actually bolstered. Staff from the fire marshal’s office and the Vancouver Fire Department go door-to-door to talk with residents about protecting their homes from fires. With people spending more time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, they were able to reach more people while making their rounds. The tips they share include never leaving cooking food unattended on the stove top, putting cigarettes out in potted plants, and leaving candles burning when you’re not home or when going to sleep.

Young said his office struggled again in 2021 to continue its educational outreach. Events were canceled because of COVID-19, and staff were unable to share safety tips with people at schools, assisted living facilities and homeowner’s association meetings, like they usually would. This year, Young said his office will work on different ways to reach those audiences again, such as attending Zoom meetings. Fireworks bans A record-breaking heat wave and exceptionally dry summer prompted officials to ban fireworks countywide for the Fourth of July holiday. Where fireworks were already banned in the city of Vancouver, Young called this a “very unique year.” He said he felt people mostly recognized the dangers of a rogue firework sparking a devastating blaze. The holiday was quieter than usual for crews, and officials considered the bans effective. Both the Clark County and Vancouver fire marshal’s offices each issued seven citations to people lighting off the explosives illegally. In Vancouver, that was down from 45 citations in 2020 and 64 in 2019.

Both Young and Scarpelli said some who defied the bans were hostile toward crews, with one person shooting a BB into a Vancouver deputy fire marshal’s vehicle. In the early morning hours of July 5, a car full of teenagers pulled up to the Old Cherry Grove Church property near Battle Ground. One teen lit a mortar and chucked it toward the wooden church. Video surveillance footage shows the firework exploding and sparking a fire, destroying the old church and a man’s home. It also burned his beloved collectables throughout the property, including hundreds of mannequins. The owner, Steve Slocum, estimated the cost of the damages to be around $1 million. Young’s office offered a $10,000 reward for information about the identities of the teens. Two months later, the boys turned themselves in. Two of the teens pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless burning and received 24 hours of community service. They will also have to pay restitution to Slocum for any repairs that are not covered by insurance, prosecutors said.

Fireworks were OK’d in the county for the freezing New Year holiday, following an unusually early-season snowstorm in December. Young said he was glad to see the winter sales in order for vendors to try to recoup some losses from when they shuttered summer sales the day after opening. One vendor told The Columbian she’d lost $100,000 when she had to pack up her Fourth of July inventory. It’s too soon to tell, Young said, whether a ban on Fourth of July fireworks for unincorporated Clark County will become the norm. Officials have statewide metrics that, when conditions are met, allow for county councilors to ban the explosives. “We’ll take the weather as it comes,” he said.

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