Backyard blaze singes ‘squatter shack’ in Brentwood-Darlington

Published 7:57 am Sunday, October 27, 2024

When smoke and fire was seen erupting from the yard of 7915 S.E. Harney Street by employees at the nearby U.S. Post Office Station, they called the 9-1-1 Center to report it. Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) crews responded to the area at 1:48 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, October 2.

Lents Station 11’s Engine Company was the first from several fire stations to respond. On the way to the fire, their lieutenant reported back to dispatchers seeing “a substantial header” – a column of dark smoke – boiling up from the area, while he was still blocks away.

A neighbor also reported the fire, and told the 9-1-1 Center call-taker that a squatter could be trapped in the burning building, or might have been injured in the fire.

Three minutes after Engine 11’s crew pulled up, they were joined by Woodstock Fire Station 25’s Ladder Company, Clackamas Fire District #1’s Ladder Truck #304 Company, and an ambulance.

As they arrived firefighters reported that something in the back yard, set back far from the street, was fully engulfed in fire – and that the blaze had also spread across the dry grass, and ignited the back of the house and a tree.

The Woodstock and Clackamas Ladder Truck firefighters were directed to cut “vertical ventilation” holes in the roof and gable, then to spray water into the fire from above, while Engine Company crews fought the fire from inside the structure.

“The ambulance was standing by as a result of information that indicated the potential for unauthorized occupants in the fire structure,” PF&R Public Information Officer Rick Graves, who was at the scene, told THE BEE. But apparently nobody was, and that ambulance later left the scene without a patient.

It didn’t take long for firefighters to put out the fire in the severely-damaged building –but crews kept spraying water onto the back of the house, as well as the smoldering remains of the shed, the tree above it, and the grass in the area. The cause of the fire, if known, has not yet been announced.

Property slated for development

Investigation shows that this derelict house is sited on property owned by Roger Goldingay and Carol Otis, founders and former operators of the well-known Southeast Portland food cart pod “Cartlandia” at 8225 S.E. 82nd Avenue of Roses – which was purchased in December of 2022 by Arnie Blumenthal, and renamed “Springwater Cart Park”.

Goldingay and Otis also own properties at 7909 S.E. Harney Street, some landlocked property to the north at 7915 and 7910-7918 Harney Street, and at 7928 S.E. Crystal Springs Boulevard.

In September 2021, the pair applied for a City of Portland permit to create a 76 townhouse-style multi-family development on all that land, and their application was approved in November of 2021. Apparently, for whatever reason, that project has stalled; there appears to have been no construction so far, and there have been no further permits issued.