Christian M. Koch
The Communicator

Wednesday at 10:24pm, firefighters were dispatched in response to a tripped fire alarm on the SFCC campus. Campus security head, Ken DeMello, was notified, and upon arrival found room 0119 of the Technical Arts Building (19) to be a mess.
“Someone had thrown a rock through a window in order to gain access,” DeMello said. “The person then lit a fire in the office.”
According to DeMello, after the fire had been started the sprinkler system in the room was successfully able to extinguish it, which kept the damage caused to a minimum; scorched walls, two iMacs, a printer, and various personal items.
“The pressure in those sprinkler systems was such that when I arrived, the fire was out and there was standing water from the office out into the hall,” DeMello said.
When asked about the security presence on campus in the evenings, DeMello said that security remains constant all hours of the day, and every day of the year.
SFCC President, Janet Gullickson, was the first person called by DeMello. “I received the call from Ken at 11:30 p.m. informing me that someone had broke into a classroom, that there had been an arson attempt, and that due to the damage to property the situation was being classified as a burglary despite the appearance that nothing had been stolen…After that, I got in contact with our Public information Officer (PIO),” Gullickson said.
According to Gullickson and DeMello the rest of the night, and the following morning, was a process involving emergency coordination of janitorial staff/facilities personal and joint discussion amongst administration as to whether or not the school would be safe for students to return to. Once administration gave the all clear, counselors were prepped to deal with any students who might need them and faculty was informed as to the situation.
“We have a plan, and it works quite well,” DeMello said.
“It’s our ability to follow such plans that allow for this kind of quick 24-hour turn around. Also, I need to give a special shout out to Jimmy on our janitorial staff. He was the only one at 3:00am that was able to be reached,” Gullickson said.
Even with the immediate response of administration and janitorial/facility staff, it was clear to any student who ventured by the west side of Building 19 that something was wrong. The emergency exit from room 0119 was propped open by an industrial fan that remained on throughout the school day, and where one of the windows had been was a large sheet of plywood surrounded by caution tape. For those students who failed to read their professor’s emails regarding their canceled classes was an even more exciting sight. Room 0119 was a circus of overturned chairs, piled equipment, soot stained walls and dirty floors.
Two visitors from the Spokane Fire Department, arson investigators Jason Reser and Steve Jones dusted for prints and collected all evidence available to them.
“We collect any type of physical evidence that we can and right now it’s under investigation so we can’t talk too much about it,” Jones said. “It’s clear that an accelerant was used in igniting the fire… samples are being sent to the lab, but it’s likely that gasoline was what the individual used.”
In order to gain some insight into the case Jones said, “We will be conducting interviews with individual in order to determine motive, means, and we go from there. We try to see who could have done this; who stands to benefit?”
The office torched had previously belonged to the former editor Connor Nuckols, so while on campus both arson investigators interviewed former news production adviser Jason Nix and former photo editor Bryce Grey in order to determine if they knew of any individual who might have been involved, or held anything against the previous editor.
When the investigators were asked if the past senior editor of The Communicator had been interviewed in regards to his pickup truck, which was also broken into and torched two weeks previous near college terrace, Jones said that investigators had interviewed him prior to this campus incident.
“These incidents aren’t related right now,” Jones said.
Both incidents do, however, share several aspects in common. Access to both the room and the truck was gained by smashing a window, and in both cases an accelerant, most likely gasoline, was used.
“The person responsible for destroying my truck is the same person who destroyed the office,” Nuckols said.
According to the Community Colleges of Spokane’s PIO Anne Tucker, there’s a possible suspect, and the Spokane Fire Department are pursuing leads.
Later that afternoon, the Spokane Fire Department Chief Brian Schaffer explained that until an individual is caught and tried the term arson isn’t actually correct. The correct term for an incident of this nature is incendiary which describes a fire that was set with intent to do harm to either/both property or individuals. The difference being that arson is a label assigned post trial.
When asked what the process looked like from here on out Schaffer said that it really comes down to luck.
“Incidents like these can take anywhere from a day to year. We just have to wait for someone to slip up. People are good at keeping secrets, but they aren’t that good.” Schaffer said.
SFCC President, Janet Gullickson cautioned the SFCC community against speculation.
“One thing that’s very interesting to me, having been in this business for a very long time, is that what’s real and what’s not real can get very confused,” she said. “The rumor-mill goes crazy, and so our job is to be as factual as we can based on what we know first hand.”

If you have any information regarding the fire in room 019, please contact the Fire Investigator, Jason Reser
509.625.7052
JLreser@spokanefire.org