Morning fire guts second story of Eastmoreland home

A fire in an Eastmoreland residence on Saturday morning, June 15, caused several neighbors to contact the 9-1-1 Center to report seeing flames rising from the second story windows of a house at 3224 S.E. Woodstock Boulevard, facing the Reed College Campus.

Several Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) stations were alerted and dispatched firefighters at 9:53 a.m. – with Woodstock Fire Station 25’s Engine Company arriving first; Westmoreland Fire Station 20’s Engine Company arrived one minute later, and hooked their pumps up to a fire hydrant and began to pull hose lines into the structure, while Engine 25’s crew searched the home for any victims.

As other arriving firefighters joined the search for victims, a PGE employee arrived and safely de-energized the power line on the ground in the driveway.

With smoke and fire arising from the shingles, the Ladder Truck crew Fire Station #4, from across the river near Portland State University, laddered up and began cutting holes for ventilating and exposing the fire, and pulled off roofing.

Complicating their efforts, crews found that fire was smoldering in cedar shake shingles that had been covered over with newer composite roofing,

Working from the inside and outside, fire personnel had largely extinguished the blaze in about ten minutes. PF&R fire investigators arrived to look into the incident and determined that the fire started in the closet of an upstairs bedroom, from which it extended to the outside of the structure and burned through the electric power line, dropping the live wire to the ground.

But as of the time this issue of THE BEE went to press, the actual cause of the fire in the closet has not yet been publicly announced.

“No injuries were reported,” PF&R Prevention Division Training Coordinator and Public Information Officer Jon Harrell told THE BEE later that day. “But, unfortunately, two of the family’s three cats were found deceased – and the third one is unaccounted for.”