An Arson Squad Investigator begins an examination the cabin of the charred craft.

On the east bank of the Willamette River, several boat owners were either maintaining them, or were just enjoying the sunny afternoon at the Waverley Marina, on Friday, May 20. Then flames were seen on one of the boats.

After a craft caught fire in the marina, witnesses told arriving firefighters that there had been a “very strong smell of glue, like a modeling glue such as one would use to build plastic bottle aircraft or boats”.

The smell was very strong before the smoke appeared — and then fire showed from a cabin cruiser that, spectators said, had been moored there for some time, with little apparent care given to it.

“We found an 18-foot boat that had a small fire in the interior,” later reported Captain Caleb Currie of Westmoreland’s Engine 20 crew, who quickly extinguished the blaze at 2:42 p.m. Nine other pieces of fire equipment responded to the general alarm, including Woodstock’s Engine 25.

“The reports were that other people in the marina had smelled smoke for about thirty minutes before they saw the fire; when smoke started coming out of the window of this boat, they called us,” Currie confirmed for THE BEE.

The main fire appeared to be in the cabin area of the craft, he said. An Arson Squad Investigator arrived, but findings regarding the cause of the blaze, and loss estimate, were not available at press time.

No one was on board, Currie said; and he added that no one had seen anyone near that boat since last summer. Pending the outcome of the investigation, it was possible that the fire arose from spontaneous combustion.