Fire caused significant damage to the second floor of a Centralia home Monday morning.
Centralia’s new Fire Chief Blake Perez had arrived for duty for his first day as chief just moments before the fire call came in at the Michael Holloway residence at 29 Sherwood Drive.
“At the time the fire started, the homeowner was actually outside,” Perez said. “He was blowing his gumballs off of his yard, he went inside to get another battery for his backpack blower, and that’s when he saw the smoke. We got there, we had smoke showing from the second floor and through the peaks of the roof. The crews there were able to make an aggressive fire attack on the second floor, push into it, get a good knock on the fire and limit the damage to a bedroom and a hallway on the second floor.”
Perez says there was smoke damage throughout the second floor. There was no damage to the first floor. The cause of the fire has been pinpointed to a corner of the bedroom, but what ignited the fire remains under investigation.
The fire call came in around 6:30 Monday morning. All available Centralia City Firefighters were called in. The Centralia Fire Protection District and Sandoval provided mutual aid assistance.
