PORT ANGELES — Authorities are investigating two suspicious early morning fires Thursday, including one that shut down St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store.
Investigators believe the blaze at St. Vincent de Paul, 112 E. Eighth St., is linked to a small fire about 40 minutes earlier that was extinguished in a garbage can outside Serenity House Thrift Store several blocks away.
Port Angeles Fire Marshal Ken Dubuc called both fires “definitely suspicious.”
“We can’t definitively link the two,” he said, “but just coincidentally, just by circumstance.
“I would say that they were very likely both intentionally set, and probably likely by the same person or persons.”
No arrests were reported Thursday.
Firefighters put out the first fire just after 1 a.m. in a garbage container next to a wooden handicap-accessible ramp at Serenity House Thrift Store, 502 E. First St.
The blaze destroyed the container and charred the ramp but caused no structural damage, Dubuc said.
The Serenity House store, newly painted at the corner of First and Vine streets, is housed in the building that once was Port Angeles’ oldest church and is considered a historical landmark.
Officer spots smoke
About 40 minutes later, at 1:41 a.m., a police officer driving by the St. Vincent de Paul store spotted smoke and fire in a semi-enclosed area at the rear of the building and called the Fire Department, Dubuc said.
The area, contained by a chain-link fence and used to store furniture and other donations to the shop, was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.
Nearby power lines were arcing with flame, he said.
Heat radiated through the wall into the store’s pricing area, an annex on the side of the store, but ceiling sprinklers activated and contained the fire.
“It was the sprinkler system that saved the building,” said St. Vincent de Paul board treasurer Barbara Townsend, who came to the site as firefighters tackled the blaze.
Heat forced out by the enclosure’s metal roof ignited a garage across the alley, causing significant damage to the exterior and some items in the interior.