Tragic fire kills three

Hungry Horse News

Marion Fisher stood over her kitchen sink Monday, reminiscing about her recently departed North Fork neighbors, Jim, Wanda and Jamie Barry, as she cooked some of the 14 recently butchered roosters the Barry family had raised.

"Wanda was an animal person," Fisher said. "She had ducks, geese, chickens, dogs, cats, doves, pigeons, horses, goats, a milk cow and beef cows. And now my neighbor has moved away."

Jim, 63, Wanda, 52, and Jamie, 15, all died from smoke inhalation on Friday, Jan. 22. A wood-burning stove in their North Fork Road home, just outside Columbia Falls, appears to have caused the blaze. (A complete obituary of all three victims appears on page A10.)

Fisher, 79, a resident of the Flathead Valley since 1949, had known Wanda since 1984, and her husband James Barry IV since the two were married 20 years ago.

"She was a very happy person," Fisher said. "They were warm-hearted, hard-working people."

Wanda upholstered a chair in the Fisher home, the same one she also occupied for long conversations with Fisher's late husband, Charles, who died in 2007.

"Wanda and Grandpa Fisher were great buddies," Marion recalled.

Wanda and Marion weathered many crises together — including the deaths of Charles and of Jim and Wanda's 4-year-old daughter Carmen from a ruptured appendix in 1995.

Fisher shared other memories, too — such as the Barry teenager, Jamie, bringing her the mail and newspaper and helping with work around the Fisher barn.

And when Jamie got a motorscooter, she watched him ride it continually on a path around the Fisher property.

Tai and Spring Foley of The Whistle Stop Cafe on Nucleus Avenue live on the other side of the Barrys' property,. As they sat at their lunch counter recently, the two said they also recalled Jamie and his motorscooter.

"He would ride it up and down the driveway, all day, everyday," Tai said.

Tai remembers other sounds of the Barry family.

"Our roosters would crow, then their roosters would crow," he said. "Day and night, they never took a break."

The Barrys were "always there if you needed them," Spring said. "Anything that had a motor in it, Jim would fix. He was always ready to lend a hand."

The Foleys remembered that the Barrys participated every year in the Heritage Days parade, riding a purple 1957 Chevy convertible that Jim Barry had restored.

Now the Foleys are encouraging folks to stop by their restaurant, at 420 Nucleus Avenue, and help find homes for the birds and animals the Barry family left behind. It's the Foleys' way of returning a favor.

"When we moved here, we thought we would stay two years and move on," Spring said. But the Barrys were such good neighbors that the Foleys stayed four years beyond their target date.

"The thought of leaving now would be tough," Spring said. "This is such a tight-knit community" because of the Barrys.

Jim Barry operated his own construction business, Alpine Builders, so he spent a lot of time at Western Building Center on U.S. Highway 2. The store's senior salesman, Dan McDonald, 63, remembers the Barry family as "nice people."

Just a week ago, McDonald helped Jim and Jamie at the same help desk where he stood Monday.

"They were comfortable to work with," he said. "It's a terribly sad loss for me."

THE FIRE that killed the Barrys started between the ceiling and roof of their home, according to a law enforcement spokesman for the Flathead County Sheriffs' Fire Investigation Team.

Flathead County Detective Sgt. Pat Walsh said flammable material surrounding the stove pipe between the ceiling and roof likely caught fire and eventually fell into the home's living space, igniting it. Fire apparently obstructed the family's only escape route.

A report from the county's fire behavior specialist was not available at press time.

Columbia Falls Fire Department Chief Rick Hagen said his department received a call from the Flathead County Sheriff's office at 6 a.m. and arrived at the home 10 minutes later. Firefighters extinguished the blaze by 7 a.m., but not before it had charred a third of the home.

First response included 15 firefighters, two engines, two water tenders, a rescue vehicle and a utility vehicle.

Badrock Fire and Blankenship fire departments also responded. A total of 25 firefighters contained the blaze to one third of the structure. Heat and smoke damaged the rest of the home.

An initial investigation indicated that there were no batteries in any of the home's three smoke detectors. Two detectors — one in a hallway and another in a bedroom — were melted and parts recovered, but no battery parts were found. An intact smoke alarm in another bedroom had an open lid and no battery.

"Finding one 'smoke alarm) intact but not working leads us to believe the others weren't working," Hagen said.

Walsh said smoke alarms would have alerted the family in plenty of time to escape the heavy smoke that killed them.

"You don't find people in a fire where the home has working smoke alarms," Walsh said.

Smoke alarms are available in area stores, such as Western Building Center and Pamida, cost anywhere from $5 to $25. The 9-volt batteries they require cost about $8 a pair.

Home fire experts recommend replacing smoke-alarm batteries at least twice a year — at the same time when homeowners change their clocks in spring and fall.

According to McDonald at Western Building Center, proper assembly of a woodstove pipe through the ceiling and roof of a home includes a ceiling support kit, to bear the weight of the assembly, plus a dripless adapter that channels creosote back into the stove, a 10-inch double-wall pipe, a two-inch gap around the double-wall pipe, and an insulation shield, especially helpful with blow-in insulation.