Five Ketchikan residents are safe after a house fire Sunday night, but the blaze left the family’s home uninhabitable.
Ketchikan Fire Marshal Andrea Buchanan says a power strip sparked the Sunday night house fire at 1776 First Avenue.
“They had a plug into a plug into a plug,” she told KRBD in a phone interview.
That large electrical load along with a bend in the extension cord allowed a fire to start in a storage room.
Buchanan says the home was not equipped with smoke detectors. She says a male occupant heard a loud noise — like something falling onto the ground.
“When they came out to investigate, the male occupant found a fire to the rear of the house and he tried to extinguish it while the wife called 911,” she said.
Ketchikan firefighters arrived first, followed by North Tongass and South Tongass volunteers, around 30 responders in all. When they got there, Buchanan says they found the fire had spread to the attic.