COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — The Coeur d'Alene City Council approved a resolution for a declaration of emergency requested by the Coeur d'Alene Police Department after a fire broke out last week.
Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White said the emergency declaration would help speed up the process of purchasing replacement items, adding it is not the police department's intent to circumvent City Council or go on a "spending spree," but to help speed the recovery effort.
White said they are still searching through lost items in the fire.
Fire investigators with the Idaho State Fire Marshal's Office said an e-bike battery failure caused the fire.
According to the Coeur d'Alene Police Department, smoke was first spotted coming from the building around 5 a.m. on June 9 by on-duty officers who notified the fire department. There were 30 firefighters at the scene.
The fire destroyed the police department's supplementary building, which is home to code enforcement, animal control and the police department’s IT division.
The building also housed some of their specialty equipment, including a SWAT vehicle, their incident command trailer and their new e-bikes.
White said finding out the news about the fire’s cause was disappointing.
“To have some new program like that be so overall detrimental to the department is just horrible,” he said. “It's going to take us a long time to recover from this.”
Even with the declaration approved, White said it’s unclear when they’ll receive the funds.
“We're kind of at the mercy of our insurance provider," White said. "We're just waiting for them to determine what the next step is and when they're going to give us funds so we can start moving forward."
CDA PD says it might need millions of dollars to replace the equipment from last week's fire.
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