Historic Old Mill Bay house damaged in suspicious fire
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Fire damaged the historic Old Mill Bay house along the north shore of Lake Chelan, east of Manson, late Tuesday night.
“Looked like the fire started in the brush, got into the old wood structure,” said Manson Deputy Fire Chief Mike Williams. “(the fire) Got into the old wood structure, sawdust insulation, so it made it very difficult to put the fire out.”
Williams says the home is on Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation property and tribal police are leading the investigation into a cause.
“There was a report of unhoused folks in the area weeks prior,” Williams added. “Colville Tribes are looking at their video surveillance and try and figure out what happened. It’s definitely concerning. These (types) of fires could be very dangerous, they could turn out damaging expensive homes, they could spread into wild land fire and create a wild land-urban interface kind of situation.”
“We were lucky and (firefighters) got their very quickly with assistance from Chelan Fire and Rescue and we ended up putting 13,000 gallons of water on the fire, which is a tremendous amount of water for a very small structure fire,” said the chief.
Manson Fire encourages citizens to remain vigilant to suspicious activity and to call 911 if needed.
The Chelan Valley Bulletin reported on social media that a church at Mill Bay burned down in 1953. Chelan Box Mill, where workers made wooden apple boxes, burned down in 1969.
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