SPOKANE, Wash. — Two people died and a firefighter was injured in a Browne's Addition apartment fire on Monday morning, the Spokane Fire Department said.
Tiffany Manor Apartments on W. 2nd Avenue in Spokane's Browne's Addition neighborhood caught fire at about 2:30 a.m. Monday. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer said the fire department will be on 2nd Avenue throughout the day.
Crews took the firefighter to a local hospital and they are expected to be released on Monday.
The Spokane Police Department's Major Crimes Unit is treating this case as a potential homicide. Arson investigators are on scene and will turn the investigation over to police.
The people who died were on the top floor of the building. The building is three stories and has 11 apartments on site. The fire started in the apartments before spreading to a historic house next door. It is across the street from Coeur d'Alene Park.
There will be assistance for the residents affected by the fire, according to SFD. Officers with the Spokane Police Department are also going door-to-door asking for any surveillance video, residents in the area said.
Man alerts residents to fire by knocking on window
An unlikely hero was the reason some residents escaped. A woman her daughter escaped the fire after a man knocked on their window.
Brandy Teilborg said she and her daughter were not aware of the fire going on in the building. She lives on the bottom floor of the Tiffany Manor Apartments.
"The building was fully engulfed in flames and there wasn't a single fire alarm going off in the entire building," Teilborg said.
She said her family was able to get out thanks to the help of her neighbors. As people escaped, she said it was chaos. Earlier Monday morning, she said she saw her upstairs neighbors jumped from their apartment and another save their German shepherds by throwing them off the balcony.
Teilborg spent the morning looking for her dog who was lost in the scramble to escape the burning building. His name is Shawn Onions. He is half chihuahua and half Italian greyhound. She became emotional as she described how she set him down in the chaos and he ran off.
"All the material things I can replace, but I can't replace my dog," Teilberg said.
Teilborg was reunited with the dog later in the day after he was found hiding under a car a few blocks from the fire. It was an emotional moment for Teilborg and her daughter as he hugged her dog for the first time.
One of the German shepherds who lived in the apartment building is still missing. Her owner threw her from the third story of the building before jumping herself.
Browne's Addition is the oldest neighborhood in Spokane. It was settled in the summer of 1878.
Power was lost in the neighborhood as crews worked to put out the fire. About 645 Avista customers did not have power in Browne's Addition from 4:30 to 8:00 a.m.