Police & Fire

Firefighters monitor site of Highway 16 fire amid dry conditions

Gig Harbor Fire and Medic One spent Monday monitoring the site of a wildfire that spread along Highway 16 on Sunday, June 25, and threatened nearby buildings.

The cause of the fire was not immediately available. One person was treated for smoke inhalation. A dog was badly burned and its owner is raising funds for what could be a lengthy stint in veterinary care.

Dispatched as a residential fire

The blaze was dispatched about 1:45 p.m. Sunday as a residential fire on eastbound Highway 16 at Milepost 12. Tom Wescott, prevention division chief for Gig Harbor Fire & Rescue, said that description was probably the result of caller reports.

“Our units were dispatched to a small brush fire that almost immediately changed to a large brush fire,” he said.

Firefighters string hoses in dense smoke near Peninsula Lutheran Church.

Flames spread quickly in brush and grass along 1,000 feet of the highway between the Wollochet and Olympic drive interchanges and consumed about 2 acres, Westcott said. A video showed them engulfing tall fir trees.

The blaze was upgraded to two alarms and firefighters arrived to help from Key Peninsula, West Pierce, Tacoma and South Kitsap departments. About 20 units wound up responding, Wescott said. They battled it from both the highway and a residential area on the other side of the greenbelt.

“When you have more things to do than you have people on scene, the way to get more people is to strike another alarm,” said Westcott, who said Gig Harbor Fire had five engines on duty Sunday.

Fire engines lined up along Highway 16. Flames nearly reached Peninsula Lutheran Church in the background.

Church parking lot may have averted disaster

Evacuees and onlookers gathered amid heavy smoke in the parking lot of Peninsula Lutheran Church, which was threatened by the fire. It scorched the grass and playground equipment, but was prevented from reaching the building.

“One of the things the battalion chief commented to me about is it was a good thing the church had defensible space,” Westcott said of a gravel area. “He thought if there was brush and grass right up to the building, it could’ve been a different story.”

One person was treated for smoke inhalation. A TV station stated it was a firefighter. Wescott couldn’t confirm that.

“We got one dog out of a house and we reunited it with the owner, he said.

Dexter the dog

That dog was Dexter, a 5-year-old corgi-heeler mix owned by Joy Dewitz. Dewitz, who lives on Hunt Street near where it dead ends into the highway security fence, at first

Dexter ran into the fire and was severely burned.

believed one of her neighbors had started a campfire, said former roommate and co-Dexter owner Lexi Ari. Then Gig Harbor Police began evacuating the neighborhood, including Harborland Mobile Home Park at the corner of Hunt Street and 38th Avenue.

“She was pretty panicked,” Ari said. “When the cops knocked on the door, she didn’t know what to do. She went in and grabbed the animals.”

Dewitz removed a dog and a cat, but Dexter got spooked and darted toward his pen and into the fire. He returned to the abandoned house after being badly burned. Firefighters retrieved him and he was taken directly to Puget Sound Veterinary Specialty & Emergency.

“The fire spread so fast by the time the fire department got there I had only a few minutes to get the dogs out of the house,” Dewitz wrote in a gofundme request to help with Dexter’s medical expenses. “It was very chaotic and one of our boys Dexter got loose and ran towards the fire.

“He’s suffering from very bad burns and the bottom of all 4 paws are melted along with severe burns to his legs and chest. They estimate it will take 2-3 months to get him heeled completely and that he needs to be hospitalized for up to 2 weeks.”

The smoke was thick at Peninsula Lutheran Church.

The fire singed the grass on the back side of Dewitz’s house, but firefighters kept it away from the building. Dewitz is living elsewhere as the home is assessed for smoke damage, Ari said.

Monitoring the scene

The right lane of eastbound Highway 16 was closed for hours, backing traffic up beyond the Kitsap County line.

Fire crews remained on site until early evening, returned at about midnight and again this morning.

“We’ll be sending crews back today (Monday),” Westcott said. “A lot of times wildfires can hide and smolder in the ground and come back. We have to babysit fires like that, or check back up on them quite often.”

Westcott cautioned people that spring was unusually dry, creating extreme fire danger.

“We are certainly in some different times in western Washington,” he said. “This time of year, when it’s warm and dry and fuels are drier than they may have been in the past, we just need to be cautious about the things we do.”

Flames climb trees along Highway 16 on Sunday, June 25. Photo by Deb Krishnadasan