Oak Harbor firefighters put out unwanted conflagrations at a pet crematorium and a duplex over the weekend.
Nobody was injured in either fire.
Chief Ray Merrill with the Oak Harbor Fire Department said firefighters received a report of a fire alarm at Evergreen Pet Cremation on the north end of town Friday night. A command officer investigated and found smoke coming out from under the eaves and inside the building.
Oak Harbor firefighters responded with mutual aid from North Whidbey Fire and Rescue. Merrill said firefighters were able to contain the fire to the roof. They had to remove parts of the metal roofing material and the shielding around an exhaust stack to get to the flames.
Merrill said owner Bryan Stucky, who happens to be a city council member, had used the crematory earlier in the day to cremate several pets. Everything had gone fine and it was in the cooling phase when he left for the day.
The fire, however, started around the exhaust stack, likely through a process called pyrolysis in which a chemical change lowers the temperature in which material catches fire, according to Merrill.
Stucky said the damage was mainly cosmetic and the crematory was able to be used the next day. He said the fire didn’t affect any of the remains of pets that were in the building.
Merrill said a pet crematorium fire was a first for him in his long firefighting career.
Then on Saturday at about 5:30 p.m., a Good Samaritan driving near a two-story duplex on Lanyard Loop noticed smoke at the rear of the building and alerted the residents and the fire department. Oak Harbor Fire Department responded with mutual aid from the Navy Region Northwest fire department from the Navy base.
Firefighters found that a blaze had started at the back of one duplex and traveled into the attic, where it spread into the attic of a neighboring duplex. Merrill said the fire damaged the attics on both structures as well as one bedroom, but the 16 firefighters who responded were able to prevent it from spreading farther.
Merrill said investigators have a pretty good idea of what may have caused the fire but no definitive answer yet.
