Firefighters moved two residents of a home on fire Wednesday afternoon to safety.
The fire was at the Carolyn Lashbrook home at 942 Walnut Hill Road.
When Centralia Fire Protection District Battalion Chief Timothy Hilton arrived on the scene he was told a person was still inside the kitchen and couldn’t get out. The woman was reportedly pleading ‘help me, I can’t see’. Hilton was able to enter the back door of the home away from the fire at the front of the house and bring the woman out without injury or smoke inhalation.
As additional firefighters arrived, they moved the woman’s daughter who was in a wheelchair off the front porch where the fire was burning.
Centralia Fire District Chief Ross Boshera says there was heavy smoke showing from the fire that apparently started on the front porch and had started to move into the living room. He reports they got a quick knockdown and kept the fire from spreading further. Boshera says a 30-mile-an-hour north wind was pushing smoke from the fire inside the home. Firemen removed the door and facing as well as several floorboards and part of the ceiling to make sure the fire was out.
The cause of the fire is believed to be remnants from smoking materials that caught some pine needles on fire and spread to the front porch.
The Centralia Fire Protection District received mutual aid assistance from the City of Centralia, Sandoval, and Kell Firemen at the scene, while Odin covered the Centralia District’s station in the event of another fire.
The fire was reported at 2:11 Tuesday afternoon. Firemen were on the scene for about one and a half hours.
