On a November night in 2010, a three-story waterfront home on Vashon’s west side burned in a blaze so dramatic it prompted residents on the other side of Colvos Passage to dial 911.

Now, nearly five years later, a 12-member jury in King County Superior Court will decide the answer to a critical question about the denial of insurance reimbursement for the loss: Should the insurance company compensate the homeowners for their loss of what they say was an accidental fire? Or was the insurance company justified in denying coverage because the company investigators determined the cause to be arson? That finding would mean no compensation for a home once assessed at nearly $1 million.

Dennis Schmidt and Wendy Demeter, both firefighters with the Seattle Fire Department, are the owners of the former home on Paige Lane. They filed the civil suit in 2011, claiming American Commerce Insurance Company (ACIC) wrongly denied coverage after it did not reimburse the couple for the home and other losses. The two are suing for both economic and emotional damages.

ACIC, however, contends that Schmidt’s explanation of how the fire started is “scientifically impossible,” according to court documents, and that he had a “financial motive” to set his house aflame on a night when his wife and two children were in California: Documents show the couple faced serious permitting violations that stood to reduce the value of their home by about half.

Lawyers on both sides declined to discuss the case. However, court documents reveal that since the night of the fire, Schmidt, a battalion chief at the Seattle Fire Department, has said the flames erupted while he was working with the family’s portable generator in the basement and that he had time only to gather pets and some valuables before fleeing to safety.

On the day of the fire,  Nov. 28, the documents say a power outage had occurred, and it had reminded Schmidt he wanted to determine how many electrical loads the family’s portable generator could handle. On that afternoon, he turned the power in the house off, ran the generator and added systems one at a time. When the generator seemed that it was slowing and going to stop, to prevent it from doing so, he pulled the power cord from the wall.

“Dennis then heard a ‘whoosh’ and noticed flames where the generator’s gas cans were stored not far away,” court documents obtained by The Beachcomber say.

He tried to put the fire out with a hose, the trial brief continues, but with the power off, he could not pump water from the well. He ran upstairs and attempted to call 911 from a landline, but the phone would not work without power. With the flames advancing, he gathered up the family pets and some valuables and headed for his truck. He then located his cell phone and called 911, where he was first connected to dispatch for Kitsap County, and then connected with service for Vashon.

The first truck from Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) arrived eight minutes after Schmidt’s 911 call came in, but by then the 2,700-square-foot home was fully engulfed in flames. Despite the efforts of 25 Vashon firefighters and the fire boat from Tacoma, the house was not able to be saved. VIFR Chief Hank Lipe was on the scene  and told a reporter there that night that the home was gone by the time firefighters arrived. “That thing was ripping,” he said then.

The trial brief goes on to say that two investigations followed and deemed the fire to be accidental.

“An investigation of the fire conducted by the Vashon Fire Department stated that the cause of the ignition of the fire was ‘unintentional.’ Likewise, an investigation by the King County Deputy Fire Marshal, Todd Legg, and his partner Tom (Devine), into the origin and cause of the fire concluded the fire was accidental.”

However, Assistant Fire Chief George Brown said VIFR does not conduct investigations and that the “unintentional” ruling provided in the incident report was not an official determination on the department’s part. At the King County Sheriff’s Office, spokeswoman Sgt. Cindi West said that the case is still open with the fire marshal’s office and that its investigators have not determined or released the cause of the fire.

ACIC officials say that its first indication of arson came from one of Schmidt’s Seattle Fire Department colleagues, who called the National Insurance Crime Bureau hotline two days after the fire, reporting that he and other Seattle firefighters suspected Schmidt lit the fire and believed reporting their concerns was the right thing to do.

Legal documents for ACIC also highlight the findings of their fire investigators, who state the evidence did not align with Schmidt’s version of events.

One of those ACIC investigators was Timothy Riddle of Kirkland-based Riddle & Associates. The trial brief quotes from his 2011 report:

“In applying the scientific method … and the physical properties of fire dynamics … it is virtually impossibly [sic] to have occurred as Mr. Schmidt has professed. Based on the physical and circumstantial evidence developed during the investigation of this fire, it is my determination that the cause of the fire was incendiary (arson). The only known individual at the fire scene at the time of the fire started was the insured, Mr. Dennis Schmidt.”

ACIC officially denied the couple’s insurance claim in August 2012, citing arson, misrepresentation of fact and instances where Schmidt and Demeter failed to comply with the investigation, legal documents state.

The couple is contesting the arson allegations and saying that they complied fully with the investigation, voluntarily attended examinations under oath, never misrepresented a material fact and tried their best to comply with multiple requests, but much of what they needed was burned in the fire. Documents state they provided considerable information, ranging from blueprints of their home and plans for a new septic system to “every imaginable type of financial record.” Additionally, they say they were doing well financially when the fire occurred, with significant savings, rental properties and  retirement accounts.

Schmidt and Demeter built the home that burned after a 1996 slide damaged their previous home in the same location, sandwiched between a steep hillside and the beach in front of it.

They obtained a permit to repair their landslide-damaged home, records show, but instead they razed it and put in a new foundation and built a three-story home with an unattached garage. Court documents show that in that process, they violated county codes, including building without a proper permit and building in a critical area without regard to required setbacks and erosion hazards. Over the course of the investigation, fire investigator Riddle interviewed King County Code Enforcer Sheryl Lux with the Department of Environmental Permitting and Review. She indicated the issues at the Paige Lane home were numerous and complex and noted that if Schmidt and Demeter were allowed to retain their home, they may have had to reduce its size.

The couple, however, had hired islander Michael Bradley of Sound Design Consulting to assist with the code and permitting issues, the legal documents state, and while Bradley said that surmounting the problems would rate a nine out of 10 in difficulty and that it might have taken eight to 10 years to do so, he believed the issues could have been resolved.

The couple was proceeding and had applied for after-the-fact building permits to bring their home into compliance and had hired an engineer and septic specialist to help with the process, legal documents say.

But the planning was for naught, and at the end of Paige Lane, the charred and rusted remnants of the family’s home and life there remain just steps from the water’s edge. Public records show the property is now in foreclosure. Across the sound, the trial against Schmidt and Demeter’s insurance company is underway, but is expected to conclude this week, according to the couple’s attorney, Karen Koehler. Then it will be up to the jurors to close this chapter of a Vashon fire and its legal aftermath.