The Kuna Fire Story

Here is the article about the fire from the Kuna/Melba News. We received permission to post the article. We will try to get some pictures for the morbidly curious.

Originally published Aug. 1, 2007
Scott McIntosh
Kuna Melba News editor

Careless smoking is the likely cause of a fire that destroyed a Kuna
apartment, displaced 17 residents and sent one woman to the hospital
Saturday morning.
The fire, reported at 8:52 a.m., Saturday, July 28, at 855 White Barn
Road, started in a cardboard box of newspapers on the second-story
patio, said Kuna Fire Chief Doug Rosin.
Jeremy Love was asleep in the apartment next door on the second story
at 859 White Barn, when he heard people shouting and running down the
stairs then fuses popping in the fuse box.
He opened his front door to see thick black smoke.
“It was pretty scary,” said Love, a Micron worker who has lived in Kuna
for the past year with his wife and 16-month-old daughter. “It was
rolling black smoke when we got out.”
Love shouted to his wife to grab their baby and get out. “I wish I had
gotten my shoes, though,” said Love.
One woman, who lived in the apartment at 855 White Barn, was taken to
the hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation. She was treated and
released. Two people who lived in the apartment with her declined to
comment.
The White Barn apartments are a group of nine fourplexes located next
to the Kuna Fire Station at the corner of Boise Street and Linder
Avenue. Kuna Fire Capt. John Charlton was sitting at the station’s
front desk facing the apartments when he saw the smoke. Kuna
firefighters began their response before the call even came into 911.
The apartment at 855 White Barn was destroyed, the apartment at 859
White Barn had considerable smoke damage, the first-floor apartment at
847 had major water damage, and the first-floor apartment at 851 was
virtually untouched, said Pete Trammell, who manages the property for
the building’s owner. Each of the nine buildings has a different owner,
Trammell said. He said on Monday that insurance investigators would
assess the situation and determine what to do with the building.
Tray Belveal, who lives at 815 White Barn in a neighboring fourplex,
was one of the first people to see the fire.
“I just came out to my back patio to have my coffee and there it was,”
Belveal said. “Whoa! I got my shoes on and came out here and started
banging on doors to get people out. It freaked me out. Two tours in
Iraq, and I’ve seen all the fire I want to see.”
Four adults and two children were in the upstairs apartment at the time
of the fire, Rosin said. One cat died in the fire.
Trammell said the White Barn apartments, all fourplexes, were built in
2001 and 2002. The four apartments in the building that burned were all
three-bedroom units and have smoke alarms that are connected, meaning
if one goes off, they all go off. Fire sprinklers were not required in
these buildings, Trammell said.
Trammell said the residents who live directly under the apartment that
burned were about to move in. The carpets had been cleaned on Thursday,
and the residents had just started moving in their furniture and some
boxes Friday night, just hours before the fire. One of the residents of
that apartment declined to comment.
Jeremy Love said any loss to his family’s belongings would be covered
by renter’s insurance. “Best 18 bucks I ever spent,” he said. His
family has relatives in Kuna and Jeremy expected to stay with them.
Sheri Russell of the Kuna Disaster Fund was at the scene of the fire
helping displaced residents.
In addition to two firefighting units from Kuna, including the
department’s new ladder truck that put out the fire from above,
Meridian Fire Department sent one unit to assist.