Fire scare causes Frontier evacuation

    A pair of firetrucks rushed to the Frontier Restaurant in Washington Tuesday morning after smoke was reported in the café?s basement. Fire Chief Tom Wide arrived at the café shortly before 8:30 a.m. and instructed the restaurant staff and customers to evacuate the building.

    Firefighters hurried to connect their water hoses to nearby fire hydrants. In the end, the firefighters discovered that there were no flames inside and that the smoke had come from a washing machine in the basement. At 9 a.m., after less than an hour at the scene, Wide gave the word that the building was safe to enter. No injuries were reported. 

    Frontier waitresses Mickey Ahrens and Liz Goodwin were in the café at the time of the incident.

    ?We smelled what we thought was gas in the kitchen,? said Ahrens. ?The cook had to go downstairs to get something, and that?s when he opened the door and smelled the smoke.?

    ?The cook came up and he said, ?Ándale, ándale, call 911!?? said Goodwin (?ándale? is a word common in Mexico that means ?hurry up? or ?get going?). ?The firefighters got here and told us to shut the grill off and evacuate the building.? 

For the full story, see the July 20 edition of The Washington Evening Journal