Boarded up house catches fire again in Northeast Portland

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A boarded-up home with a history of fire damage in Northeast Portland near the intersection of Killingsworth Street and Mallory Avenue caught fire once again just after midnight on Sunday.

Flames were seen rising from the roof of the house when firefighters with Portland Fire and Rescue arrived at the scene around 12:30 a.m. Because a large portion of the home’s roof was destroyed by previous fires, firefighters decided to attack the fire from above by ladder.

“While this is a common tactic for larger commercial structures, it is not a common practice on residential fires,” PF&R stated in a press release. “The cut-up condition of the home due to previous fire damage with the stairs having been burnt out, and many holes in the walls and floors, the command officer elected to use the master streams from above to cool and extinguish the flames from the tip of the aerial ladders or the ‘ladder pipe’ nozzles.”

Firefighters also worked to protect the surrounding homes by showering them with a protective “water curtain.” After dousing the fire from above, firefighters switched to hand-held fire hoses and mopped-up the remaining flames from the ground. 

“Crews eventually entered the fire structure nearly two hours into the incident to extinguish some remaining fire that the aerial master streams were unable to access,” PF&R said. “There were some difficult void spaces to consider in this structure that are difficult to safely access with interior operations and the blocking of the aerial water streams that caused crews to remain on scene for an extended period of time.”

No neighboring homes were damaged, and no injuries were suffered as a result of the fire.