8 Families displaced by fire

Fire gutted four units at the Wildwood apartments in Weiser on Sunday afternoon and four other apartments were damaged by smoke.

 A total of six families were displaced by the fire in building B at 856 W. 7th St. An emergency team of Red Cross workers from Ontario, Ore., and Payette were in Weiser on Sunday evening to assist the families with finding a place to stay and other immediate needs. 

 A Red Cross official said the Colonial Motel in Weiser had vacant rooms available for the displaced families. On Monday, the motel had rented two rooms to displaced tenants. Other tenants impacted by the fire found other places to live temporarily. 

 Weiser residents began donating clothes and other items as early as Sunday afternoon in an outpouring of help that continued on Monday and Tuesday. 

 Love INC manager Pam Burgess said on Monday that the nonprofit set up an account at Zions Bank in Weiser for the fire victims. Donated gift cards from Bi-Mart, Ridley’s or Wal-Mart would allow the impacted residents to buy things they needed.

 The fire was reported at 1:55 p.m. by a frantic caller who said there were residents trapped on the second floor of the apartment building as fire raged through an apartment below on the first floor. 

 Jason Brown was in an upstairs apartment when he heard glass breaking at about 2 p.m. He looked outside and saw flames coming out of the window of the apartment   next door. He attempted to go out the front door but the fire forced him back. 

 Brown said he tried to grab items from the apartment to save but ran out of time as the fire closed in. 

 He escaped by climbing over the railing on the back balcony and lowering himself to the ground. 

 Jean McCallum and her daughter Crystal Herrick lost everything in the fire, which consumed their first floor apartment. They have been able to stay with relatives in the community since Sunday. 

 Herrick was home at the time on the first floor when the smoke detector went off. Smoke was filling the apartment as she exited in a hurry. 

 She ran next door to make sure her neighbor was able to get out of her apartment. Much of what transpired during those frantic minutes is a blur, she said.

 Herrick and her mom on Monday were worried about their cat. McCallum was at church when the fire started. Herrick left the front door of the apartment open when she got out. They hope their cat was able to get out before the flames engulfed the apartment. 

 McCallum said she lost 1,000 books in the fire. Both lost everything in the fire, from clothes to a lifetime of personal mementoes. With a sigh, McCallum said she will start over. 

 “Everybody is rallying around. We live in a great community,” McCallum said.

 Weiser Fire Chief Kerry Nyce said the fire was moving through the building when firemen arrived on the scene. Firemen donned breathing apparatus and went through all of the apartments looking for anybody who may have been unable to get out.

 “It was already blowing out both sides on the bottom of the building,” he said.

 A mutual aid call brought firemen and engines from Weiser Area Rural Fire District, Payette Fire, Ontario and Vale. 

 The apartment building has a fire wall between four units on the east and west. Firemen were able to stop the flames at the firewall and save the four apartments to the west, although they were damaged by smoke. The fire wall helped contain the fire to one side of the building.

 “That was our line in the sand. We just knew we had to stop it there or we would have lost the whole structure,” Nyce said.

 City fire crews were first on scene and fought the hot flames with engines and the ladder truck. The fire was so hot it melted the siding on the clubhouse.

 City volunteer firemen were at the scene for five hours and didn’t return to the fire station until 7 p.m. on Sunday night.

 There were no serious injuries. Two firemen, a police officer and one resident of the apartment building suffered smoke inhalation, Nyce said.

 A team that included two officials from the state fire marshal’s office, Weiser City Fire and Rescue and Weiser Area Rural Fire District investigated the cause of the fire on Monday. They determined the cause of the fire was electrical.