PORT ANGELES — A combination barn and shop structure was destroyed in a fire that sent black smoke into the skies above Port Angeles as it also burned several automobiles and a motorboat on Tuesday.
No one was in the 50-foot-by-50-foot building at the time of the fire, and no one was injured, Clallam County Fire District No. 2 Chief Jon Bugher said.
Although the cause of the fire was undetermined on Tuesday, it may have started from a welding spark, Bugher said.
Joe Petersen was welding in his shop next to his house at 1002 Scrivner Road south of Port Angeles, when a Fed Ex truck arrived at his door at about 9:30 a.m., he said.
“I walked over to get it from him, and was opening up the package when I hear a big kaboom,” he said.
“When I heard the explosion, I looked outside, and it was just huge.”
Nineteen firefighters from Clallam County Fire District No. 2 and the Port Angeles Fire Department battled the flames — as well as exploding fuel and paint cans and toxic fumes — for about two hours.
The structure was already aflame when firefighters arrived, Bugher said.
“We managed to confine the damage to the building itself,” he said.
“Most of the stuff outside we were able to save, but everything inside of course is lost.”
