PORT ANGELES — A 116-year-old home was reduced to a pile of rubble Wednesday afternoon as firefighters and city engineers worked to keep the bluff behind it from collapsing.
Firefighters had to let the two-story wooden home at 715 Caroline St. burn Tuesday after city engineers said that the amount of water needed to extinguish the blaze would weaken further an already eroding bluff that had poured soil and trees onto the Waterfront Trail below.
As of about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, no flames had been seen since 6:30 a.m., said Capt. Jamie Mason of the Port Angeles Fire Department.
The cause of the blaze is unknown, said Port Angeles Fire Chief Ken Dubuc.
The house was too unstable to allow firefighters to enter and attack the blaze from the inside, said Jonathan Boehme, a civil engineer for the city of Port Angeles.
On Wednesday, the remains of the home was taken down with a bucket excavator to allow water to get to the basement.
“Firefighters suspected there was still an active fire in the basement, and they couldn’t reach it through the floor,” Boehme said.
The trail below was off-limits to the public.
Boehme said Wednesday the edge of the crumbling bluff was 5 feet to 10 feet behind the house.
He estimated that there had been at least 20 feet between the home and the edge of the bluff before the fire.
The bluff also eroded behind a neighboring home at 713. E Caroline St.
No other homes are in danger at this time, Boehme said.
Firefighters with the Port Angeles Fire Department managed to get in quickly Wednesday afternoon and retrieve some items belonging to Judy Galgano, owner and resident of the home.
They were scattered across the yard and on the porch of the apartment — a collection of antique photographs, an antique cabinet, a few coats and sweaters, and kitchen pots and pans.
“I’m surprised they were able to get so much,” said Galgano, 83, who moved into the house in 1956.
Her 14-year-old cat, Mommie, a fluffy Himalayan cross, did not make it out of the fire, she said.
But firefighters retrieved some photographs of the cat.
“She was my constant companion, my little caretaker,” Galgano said.
Galgano said she raised six children in the house.
At one time, it had been home to one of her children and his family.
She also owns the duplex building next door at 719 Caroline St., and had moved into an empty apartment there, she said Wednesday.
The other apartment is occupied by family members. Other family members live in a home across the street.
A section of the Waterfront Trail between City Pier and North Francis Street remained closed Wednesday.
The trail was littered with debris from Tuesday’s slides and more threatened.
“We’re not sure when the trail can be reopened,” Boehme said.
“Our number one priority is to pull the house back. Then we will assess the trail.”
The home, built in 1900, was valued at $150,089, according to county property records.
It was the oldest of the six homes on the north side of Caroline Street that are perched on bluffs overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The homes are just west of the Francis Street access to the Waterfront Trail, which passes under the bluffs.
Three of those homes — at 705, 713 and 715 Caroline St. — were already precariously close to the bluffs which have been eroding and causing mudslides to fall and block the trail below.
On Tuesday night, the residents of 713 Caroline were not allowed to stay the night there because of the danger of more slides on the bluff near the house’s northeast side.
They were not going to be allowed back on Wednesday, Boehme said, adding that the situation would be reassessed this morning.
“It’s a feeder bluff. Small amounts of erosion occur naturally, but large amounts of water [can speed it up],” he said.
Boehme said most other homes on bluffs in Port Angeles could be subject to similar problems if there is another house fire.
Power was cut off to at least an additional three homes on the street after power and cable lines were removed to give firefighters better access to the fire.
On Wednesday afternoon, Port Angeles Light crews were on the scene to restring power lines and power was expected to be restored by evening.
The fire was reported at about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday by Angeline Parrish, owner of Banbury Corner Children’s Center, 305 N. Eunice Street.
Parrish said Wednesday that she was walking through the alley between Caroline and Georgiana streets, which is behind the child care center, and had stopped to look at a garden in an empty lot when she saw smoke coming from the downspouts, then from under the roof.
“I called 9-1-1 and got two men who were spraying a roof [across the street] to check inside,” she said.
No one was in the house.
She then alerted people in the homes on either side of the burning house.
Laura Galgano, daughter-in-law of Judy Galgano, said Wednesday she wasn’t aware of the fire until Parrish came into her home to warn her.
Everyone in the household was able to get out safely, and there was no damage to the duplex home.
Parrish said that earlier on Tuesday a dog who lives across the street from the fire had tried to get into the day care center, and was very insistent, she said.
“I think he was trying to warn us,” she said.
Firefighters had the blaze mostly extinguished by 8 p.m. Tuesday, but remained overnight to put out small hot spots that remained.
The owner said she had left a fire in a wood stove when she left the house before the fire ignited, but Dubuc said it is unknown if that caused the blaze.
One of the difficulties in fighting the fire was that the house was of “balloon construction” design, typical of the era, Dubuc.
The open construction allowed the interior of the home to burn completely, from the basement to the attic, without burning to the exterior of the building, Dubuc said.
Fires in houses built by balloon construction are difficult to fight, as they burn where firefighters cannot safely reach, he said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
