Firefighters from around Union County battle the blaze in 2017 at the Quail Run Motor Inn on Adams Avenue, La Grande. Every fire department in Union County helped fight the fire, along with fire departments from Baker City and Haines. The building was a total loss. Fire officials said a water heater likely caused the fire.

A water heater likely caused a fire that left the Quail Run Motor Inn a charred ruin on La Grande’s east Adams Avenue Saturday, but no injuries were suffered.

Larry Wooldridge, chief of the La Grande Rural Fire Department, said late Sunday afternoon that a malfunctioning natural gas-fueled water heater in the southwest corner of the Quail Run Motor Inn is suspected of causing the fire. Wooldridge said he and Casey Kump, a deputy state fire marshal based in La Grande, concluded this after an investigation.

Wooldridge said that the State Fire Marshal’s report on the fire “will state that the water heater was the probable cause of the fire.”

Nobody was hurt, but 36 people and one dog staying at the motel lost their rooms, according to Red Cross volunteer Rebecca Vaughn.

The blaze, which was reported at 11:51 a.m. to Union County dispatch, spread rapidly through the 18-room motel.

“When I arrived (about five minutes after the fire was reported) smoke was coming through every vent,” Wooldridge said.

La Grande Senior Police Officer Matt Duncan was one of the first emergency responders at the scene. Duncan immediately checked as many of the motel’s rooms as possible. Several of the rooms were locked so he kicked them open to make sure nobody was inside.

“My footprints are on some of those doors,” Duncan said.

All of the rooms the police officer checked were vacant. About 30 people had already evacuated the motel, including a man in a wheelchair, Duncan said.

At this point, the rooms were filled with smoke.

“The flames grew in a hurry,” Duncan said.

Loud popping sounds accompanied the flames.

“They sounded like firecrackers,” Duncan said.

Heather Boothman, who lives less than 100 feet south of the Quail Run Motor Inn, is among those who first saw the fire and called 911. She left her house immediately and watched from a distance as firefighters from Union and Baker counties successfully fought the blaze. Boothman said there was so much smoke that she could not tell if her house was safe.

“It was two hours before I knew it would be OK,” she said.

Boothman’s home survived unscathed but was left with a smell of smoke after the fire, which firefighters helped reduce with a deodorizing procedure.

“It really helped,” said Boothman’s husband, Bryan, who was away at work during the fire.

The Quail Run Motor Inn is owned by Sushil Kumar and his wife, Parveen Chauhan. The La Grande couple have owned the motel since 2008. They are grateful that nobody was injured in the blaze.

“Thank God nobody was hurt,” Chauhan said.

Kumar said it was painful to lose the motel because of how hard his family worked to keep it running.

“My blood (sweat and tears are) in each of those rooms,” said Kumar, who believes the Quail Run Motor Inn was built in the 1960s.

Saajan Chauhan, the son of the motel’s owners, said the fire destroyed some treasured family keepsakes.

“We lost a lot of our possessions,” he said. “Some things are irreplaceable.”

Don Bryan, who said he was in the room next door to where the fire likely started, also was hit hard by the fire.

“I’ve been living here a couple of months,” Bryan said on the side of Highway 30 as the fire burned. Bryan, who was born and raised in La Grande, said he only has the clothes on his back now.

Vaughn, who had been working with the other Red Cross volunteers handing out water and some food to the firefighters at the scene, said the nonprofit organization will provide a stipend to help those who were displaced by the fire.

Red Cross also gives comfort kits that provide personal hygiene items and will help any of the residents who need medical supplies as much as they can.

“We want to help get them on the road to recovery,” she said.

The fire raged for most of the afternoon as onlookers gathered along the highway to watch. Fire crews didn’t start to leave the scene until after 7 p.m. Saturday.

Every fire department in the county was called to assist in the fire. After a couple of hours, during which time crews went through two to three oxygen tanks, mutual aid was requested from the Baker City and Haines fire departments.

“We needed more manpower,” Wooldridge said. “And we like to rotate the guys when they’ve been through one or two tanks of oxygen.”

The Baker City Fire Department was called in because its ladder truck was needed in addition to one provided by the La Grande Fire Department, Wooldridge said.

The ladder trucks allowed firefighters to more easily douse the metal roof of the Quail Run Motor Inn. Wooldridge said it would have been too risky to have firefighters on the roof because the rafters supporting it were burning.

“The rafters could have collapsed,” he said.

Wooldridge said as far he knows, this was the first time in the nine years he has been with his department that the Baker City Fire Department was called in to help.

Kump said one factor that contributed to the rapid spread of the fire was the motel’s common attic space. The deputy state fire marshal explained that because the attic was not separated with partitions, the blaze moved quickly through the space above all 18 of the motel’s rooms.

Current fire codes generally require attic space to be separated, Kump said, but this was probably not required when the Quail Run Motor Inn was built.

Between 60 and 65 firefighters fought the blaze. In addition to the two ladder trucks, seven engines, two ambulances and an air trailer, used to fill oxygen tanks, responded to the scene.