The call came about 6 A.M. on the morning of Friday, July 16th, 1999. It was from my boss, Rick.

“Have you seen the news?” he asked. “There’s a fire at the Fairmont. Get down here as soon as you can.”

I hung up the phone and turned on the TV.

All four local news stations broadcast a blaze consuming the Fairmont, a 97-unit apartment building providing low-income housing to 108 residents.

Shortly after college, I worked my way into a residential property manager position. Garden-style complexes, downtown apartments, and homeowner’s associations comprised my portfolio.

My boss, Rick, was a senior property manager with years of experience, and I backed him up on the Fairmont Apartments.

When I arrived downtown, I parked several blocks away from the Fairmont. Police officers limited closer access as firetrucks parked near several burning buildings. Firefighters sprayed water while residents lined the streets—some crying, some pacing, all watching helplessly.

Flames shot out of the Fairmont’s upper floors. It was a crazy scene.

The fire had already destroyed the adjacent Mars Hotel—a recently shut-down casino with a history of problems. Another neighboring building, the Glen-Dow Hair Academy, was being damaged by the blaze. The store on the far side of the Fairmont (Metropolitan Interiors) was not harmed by flames but by smoke and water. The whole block was a mess.

Rick and I walked to the Paulsen Center, a nearby office building owned by the Fairmont’s landlord. We went up to the roof of that sixteen-floor building and watched as the firefighters battled the blaze.

My boss and his fiancé were leaving for Las Vegas the following morning. They had wedding plans and would be gone for a week. I then realized the Fairmont would be my responsibility until he returned.

The firefighting continued throughout that day. The Red Cross arrived and found temporary lodging for those residents requesting it. Fortunately, everyone survived the fire.

Click any photo to enlarge.

The next day, a dozen members of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) arrived to investigate the fire. This group was part of the same team which had investigated the bombings in Oklahoma City and at the World Trade Center.[1] Investigators from the Spokane Fire Department and the Valley Fire District joined them as they walked the scene. An accelerant-sniffing dog worked the scene.

Two days later, our property management office found new apartments for the residents displaced by the fire. They were relocated as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Under the fire marshal’s watch, I guided residents back to their apartments to recover personal effects. A building representative had to be with a resident at all times, and that duty fell to me and a couple of other managers who volunteered. There was no power to the building, so neither the lights nor the elevator functioned. With a hard hat and flashlight, I climbed various flights of stairs amid the lingering smell of smoke. The higher we were in the building, the worse the damage. On the lower levels, it mainly was extensive water damage. The upper story was burned, and the roof was non-existent.

It was heartbreaking to watch people dig through their apartments and search for anything from their “old life.” Many of the residents on the upper levels didn’t recover much. None of them had renter’s insurance, but even if they did, many things were unreplaceable—photos and family heirlooms, for example.

I repeated that process every day for the rest of the week. I also would provide the company’s leadership updates on how things were progressing with the Fairmont. That was the most communication I’d ever had with upper management at that point. I contacted the Fairmont owners several times daily to update them on all activities.

When Rick returned, he retook the lead, and I returned to my regular duties.

About a month later, I left my property manager job and joined the Spokane Police Department. My life took an entirely new trajectory.

At the time of the fire, the Mars Hotel was in a legal quagmire. In 1997, the former owners of the building filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to reorganize their debt.[2] However, when they failed to pay their taxes, a judge converted the Chapter 11 to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy (asset liquidation) in 1998.

The bankruptcy trustee realized there were so many liens against the building that it was worthless to be auctioned off for its creditors. The building’s ownership was in a tangled paper trail, making it hard to find anyone to hold accountable. The trustee started the process of abandoning the building in December 1998, [3] and in 1999 the legal status reverted to the partnership. The first lien holder refused to foreclose on the property in 1999.[4]

After two months, the city decided to clean up the rubble pile left behind by the Mars Hotel. Its clean-up delayed the renovation of the Glen Dow Hair Academy as a partial wall was still against Glen Dow’s building. The city wasn’t going to recover the funds from the clean-up, but it was the right thing to do to get that city block under renovation.[5]

Several months after the fire, the authorities determined that an “ignitable liquid” was in the basement of the abandoned Mars Hotel.[6] Though it was considered arson, no one was ever held accountable.

The Fairmont was sold and renovated into The Morgan Building, a condominium project. It was hard to fathom the transformation from the fire and the apartment community where we dealt with a continual parade of problems.

The Mars Hotel land was also purchased and developed into a parking garage for The Morgan Building owners. The Glen Dow Hair Academy building was restored and has thrived, and Dania Furniture also has done well.

The Fairmont lives on in my fictional worlds. I renamed it the Claremont, which appears in such stories as Cutler’s Chase (where John Cutler lived for the first couple of books). I renamed the building so I could change its history and keep it around as a low-income house provider.

NOTE: The information for this post is from personal experience and newspaper reports that I’ve kept (see footnotes below). I purchased the photos from Larry Lutz, a resident in the Fairmont who lost almost everything that morning. This was the most significant experience I went through as a property manager, so I didn’t want to lose those memories.

This post originally appeared on The Bumbling Millionaire as “A Phone Call No Property Manager Wants to Receive.” It has been updated and slightly modified.

[1] Jones, Grayden. “A hunt for answers.” The Spokesman-Review. July 18, 1999
[2] Barker, Kim. “Mars Hotel’s Owner Files for Bankrupty, Business to Stay Open.” The Spokesman-Review. December 4, 1997
[3] Crompton, Kim. “Abandonment order sought for Mars Hotel.” The Spokesman-Review. December 23, 1998
[4] Ellig, Tracy. “Tangled paper trail shrouds ownership of torched casino.” The Spokesman-Review. July 30, 1999
[5] Ellig, Tracy. “Mars fire rubble delaying repairs at adjacent sites.” The Spokesman-Review. August 18, 1999.
[6] Staff reports. “An ‘ignitable liquid found in Mars annex.” The Spokesman-Review. August, 5, 1999