The house of Kathy (Sullivan) Hamby in Clallam Bay was gutted by a fire the evening of Saturday, Dec. 18.

Hamby was examined by the Clallam Bay Emergency Medical Team. EMT Patrice Porter declared Hamby was okay. Hamby was sent on to Forks Community Hospital to verify her condition.

The house was located directly behind the Clallam Bay library, separated from the public structure by a thicket of bushes and vines. The trees and bushes had fortunately been soaked through by a day-long rain.

Neighbor Aaron Burdette first saw smoke from the fire when he looked across the alley from his father’s house to Hamby’s home. Burdette went over to help with a fire extinguisher; Hamby told him she had already called the fire department.  

By that time the flames were flaring out of a window, and both of them made no further attempt to douse the fire.

“You walked ten feet in there, you were dead,” Burdette said .

By the time the fire department arrived the house engulfed in flames. Two Douglas Fir trees, with their high pitch content, that stood near the back of the house, were on fire.

“It was engulfed,” he said, referring to the taller tree that he estimated was 50 feet tall. “The flames were shooting up about ten feet above that.”

The fire department quickly doused the tree fires, but the house continued to burn.

The cause of the fire may have been an electrical problem.