A fire started in a Camas home still under construction sometime over the weekend, and fire sprinklers installed in the house put out the fire before anyone noticed.
The home, 3210 N.W. Hood Court, Camas, is in the sheetrock phase of construction, according to an email from Randy Miller, deputy fire marshal at the Camas-Washougal Fire Department. The fire started in the laundry room wall and burned into the home’s entry way and attic.
Even though there were plastice protective cups over the sprinkler heads to protect them during construction, “the plastic covers still melted away in time for the two heads that were heat activated to control and extinguish the fire,” Miller wrote.
The fire department was called Monday morning after the subdivision supervisor for Pahlisch Homes unlocked the house and saw the damage. Fire Marshal Ron Schumacher and Miller investigated the fire, and gave credit to the fire sprinklers for avoiding the necessity of having “our fire crews dispatched to a fully involved structure fire,” Miller wrote.
This was the fourth Camas house fire put out by a home sprinkler system, according to Miller. At the Camas city council meeting April 18, the councilors voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance requiring all new homes in the city to have fire sprinklers, although many residents in Camas have been installing them in new homes for more than a decade because of a fee waiver the city put in place in 2003.