At 3:30 am on 02/25/23, Portland Fire & Rescue responded to a vehicle fire at NE 138th and NE Jarrett Way near Marine Drive. This fire resulted in the death of a 38-year-old female victim. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
The vehicle in question was a modified delivery truck with makeshift heating sources and discarded smoking materials present inside the vehicle. The fire crew arrived to find a delivery truck completely engulfed in flames. The crew stretched a 1 ¾” hose to the back entry of the truck and began to extinguish the flames from outside of the vehicle. After the flames were cooled enough from their exterior attack, crews entered the vehicle and encountered more active fire as well as extreme clutter, providing challenges in the extinguishment process. The crew used an entire 500-gallon tank of water from the engine and had much of the fire extinguished at which point the driver of the engine replenished the tank at the closest fire hydrant. With some hot spots still flaring up and the entire vehicle steaming from the hot metal involved, the crew searched both the interior and the exterior of the vehicle with flashlights and attempted to separate multiple objects amidst the clutter that had melted together to form a large singular mass of burnt objects. The crew used an additional 500 gallons of water on the vehicle and contents to be certain that all hotspots within the items on the interior were completely extinguished. An hour after arrival and working, the crew cleared and returned into service.
The co-owner of the vehicle returned to the site on 03/01/23 to discover the body located under the fire debris. A police call was initiated leading to a larger investigation on the part of the Fire Investigation Unit made up of members from Portland Fire and Portland Police. The cause of death is under investigation from the county medical examiner’s office.
