PORT ANGELES — The cause of last month’s Elks Naval Lodge fire is officially undetermined.
But investigators have narrowed down the culprit to a few pieces of electrical equipment, the city’s fire marshal said Thursday.
Either a computer, a monitor, a power strip, an extension cord or a few other small electrical items are to blame, the marshal, Ken Dubuc, said.
Whether the expensive testing is done to identify the exact item is up to the insurance companies, he said.
“I would absolutely love to know (the exact cause), but we’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars to do those tests, and we just simply don’t have the resources,” Dubuc said.
“Professionally, it’s very frustrating. We always want to know why so we can stop it from happening again.”
The Dec. 9 fire started in an office in the rear of Camera Corner photography shop at First and Lincoln streets, then spread up into the second floor of the historical five-story building, damaging the game room and third-floor ballroom.
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The rest of the story appears in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News.
