Portland Firefighters faced challenging conditions at a warehouse fire at 5140 N Channel Ave this morning. At 7:50am Engine 24 was dispatched to a commercial alarm at a large warehouse. The call was upgraded to Commercial Fire when a neighboring business called and said that they could see fire in the building.Â
There were several challenges that firefighters had to deal with on this fire. First was gaining access to the building. There was a locked gate, and being a Sunday morning, nobody was there to let them in. The second challenge was that this was a large, non-sprinklered building full of high racks of carpeting and rubber matting. Picture the kind of racks at a Home Depot, full of carpeting material and no sprinklers. The first arriving Chief called for a 2nd alarm as soon as he got on scene and saw the conditions.
Crews made access through the front door of the business and immediately encountered blacked out conditions. One of the first crew fighting the fire inside was able to open two large roll up doors adjacent to the fire area. This was important as it gave these crews an obvious exit if conditions rapidly deteriorated. Two truck companies put their aerial ladders to the roof and opened up an area directly above the seat of the fire. This also helped conditions improve inside so that the fire attack crews could get the fire out. There was a small amount of fire that extended up into the roofing structure, and crews on the roof got a hose line up there and got those extinguished as well.
This was a very dangerous fire that could have consumed the entire building if not for the work of the crews. Investigators are on scene working to determine a cause and there are other crews working to ensure that the fire is completely out and will not restart.
