OR Crews Rescue Residents, Pets During Four-Alarm Apartment Fire

Savannah Eadens

oregonlive.com(TNS)

Firefighters are on the scene of a three-alarm blaze Tuesday morning inside a Southwest Portland apartment building at 1041 S.W. Taylor Street in Goose Hollow. The call appears to have come in around 10:30 a.m.

Heavy, black smoke is visible from downtown and throughout the Portland skyline.

Photos and video posted on social media by Portland Fire & Rescue show smoke billowing from the windows of the four-story structure as firefighters appeared to evacuate and rescue tenants and pets from the fire-escape stairs on the building’s facade.

By 11 a.m., fire bureau on-scene command directed crews to withdraw from the building because the fire was still growing. At 11:45 a.m., the agency tweeted that it had become a four-alarm fire and crews were performing a “Personal Accountability Report” — making sure all firefighters were accounted for.

Portland General Electric turned off power to the area, the fire bureau said. Outages are expected to last a few hours in the neighborhood.

It’s unclear if anyone is still trapped inside the building. Firefighters expanded the diameter around the building to protect neighboring structures because the apartment building may fully collapse, the fire bureau said. Emergency response vehicles were moved away from side of the building “in the event of a structural collapse,” the agency tweeted.

The apartment building is two blocks away from Lincoln High School, which lost electricity Tuesday morning.

Lincoln principal Peyton Chapman sent an email to parents just before noon, saying it appeared a transformer had blown nearby.  The school is running emergency lights on emergency generators and bringing students who were off site back into the school due to the worsening air quality from the “massive fire.”

This story will be updated.

— Savannah Eadens; [email protected]; 503-221-6651; @savannaheadens

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