Lents ‘transient flop house’ found ablaze
Published 12:00 am Saturday, August 18, 2018
- The boarded-up house offered few ways for fire crews to access, and put out, the fire.
“I hate to say it, but I hope that house burns to the ground,” growled neighbor Muriel Sanchez on the morning of August 17, as she watched firefighters struggle to put out a house fire at 8702 SE Harney Street, near where the road dead-ends into the Springwater Trail.
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“Although it’s been boarded up, it’s been a ‘druggie flop house’ with people coming and going, mostly on bicycles, at all hours of the day and night,” Sanchez told THE BEE. “We neighbors complained, and finally [City] inspectors came out in June.”
Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) crews were called out at 9:53 a.m. that morning; the Bureau’s Woodstock Station 25’s Truck Company, the first rig on scene, reported back to Dispatch thick black smoke and flames rising from the structure.
“Crews have just arrived on-scene of a fully-involved residential fire; the house is vacant and boarded up,” a PF&R official reported tersely at 10:02 a.m. Within minutes, 10 additional engines and ladder trucks had arrived.
A minute later, firefighters were told to vacate the premises for safety; ladder truck crews were ordered off the roof and back from the blazing building. Complicating their movements around the building, an electrical power line sparked and fell after being burned off by the intense heat.
Also causing concern was the discovery of several charred, used propane tanks firefighters had found and removed — causing them to wonder if more fuel tanks, perhaps unused, were still inside the burning house.
“Crews are taking an exterior position for a defensive fire attack,” reported a Fire Bureau official. With additional water supply lines in place, some firefighters turned to preventing the fire from spreading to a nearby house.
Smoke several times further reduced visibility in the area, as crews continued to shoot streams of water into the structure through any openings not boarded up.
“The fire is extinguished; companies remain on-scene doing mop up — and investigators are also working to determine cause and damage estimates,” said a Fire Bureau spokesperson at 11:31 a.m.
Public records from the City of Portland Bureau of Development Services (BDS) show the residence to be “owner occupied” — and Multnomah County records indicate a Vancouver address for the property’s owners. Of course, owner-occupied homes are seldom found boarded up.
We checked the neighbor’s assertion that this was a “troubled” property. According to Complaint #4229876 — Nuisance”, dated June 15, a BES inspector reported: “Tall grass and weeds, discards, litter”. The case was closed out on August 2, but no final evaluation was posted.
And now the house has burned. Perhaps to the ground.