June 9 – Couer d’Alene police will have to find a way to cope after a three-hour fire left their equipment storage building a “total loss.”
The fire, which started around 5 a.m. Sunday, destroyed the outbuilding near Kathleen Avenue and Ramsey Road. It’s where police, code enforcement and animal control have offices, said Deputy Fire Marshal Craig Etherton of the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department.
Law enforcement groups like SWAT also store large vehicles there, such as a military-grade tactical armored vehicle known as a BearCat.
The department’s BearCat cost $169,725 in 2019, according to a social media post from Lenco, the BearCat’s manufacturer.
The losses include 16 “four-wheel” vehicles — not including patrol motorcycles — and a large command trailer the department uses for “complex” incidents, Etherton said.
The outbuilding was built with money from a 2015 bond to store the additional vehicles. There is no estimate yet on the cost of the damage, but it is a “major dollar loss,” he said.
“This is a great loss for the police department and the city in general. There is a lot of expensive equipment that we are trying our best to get,” Etherton said. “It’s obviously not going to be available for a while.”
About 20 to 30 crews from the fire department and Kootenai County Fire and Rescue were on scene Sunday. The Idaho State Fire Marshall’s Office is investigating the cause.
