Two of three sections of a three-story multifamily building under construction in Northeast Portland collapsed after a fire broke out early Thursday morning.

Portland Fire & Rescue arrived at the construction site near the intersection of Northeast 36th Avenue and Killingsworth Street around 2 a.m., KGW reported. Firefighters found two three-story partially built structures “fully involved with fire,” according to Portland Fire & Rescue.

“The Hannah” is planned as a 15-unit market-rate apartment building at 5480 N.E. 36th Ave. Edge Development is the developer and general contractor.

“It’s unfortunate,” said Kyle Woodley, Edge Development director of development. “We were just getting going.”

Ground was broken only a few months ago. Woodley said the team plans to rebuild.

Portland Fire & Rescue crews were battling the fire when two building sections collapsed. No firefighters were injured and no residents in the area were displaced.

The cause of the fire is being investigated by Portland Fire & Rescue. However, initial findings suggest that the fire was likely an act of arson, Woodley said.

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The Associated Press

PORTLAND — Firefighters rescued over a dozen people and at least two dogs from an apartment building fire on Tuesday in downtown Portland.

The building, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive, was the May, at 1410 S.W. Taylor St.,

Portland Fire & Rescue tweeted about 10:45 a.m. that it had responded to the blaze and shortly after said rescues were under way. Fire officials said before noon that firefighters were told at one point to pull back because of the fire’s growth. Crews then did one of several checks to make sure all the firefighters were accounted for, officials said.

Rick Graves, spokesman for the department, told The Oregonian/OregonLive later Tuesday that the department was confident everyone got out of the approximately 113-year-old building, which had about 60 units.

Photos and video posted by the fire agency showed black smoke pouring out of the four-story building and firefighters helping residents and even a dog down ladders to safety.

Several times, windows exploded as the fire ripped through the structure. Authorities were concerned the building might collapse or the flames might spread to another structure just feet away, Graves said. Huge plumes of thick smoke were visible from most areas of the city.

Fire trucks were moved to areas that would be safe should the building collapse, Graves said. One firefighter was hit on the forehead with glass while standing across the street. The injury was minor, and the firefighter returned to fighting the blaze, Graves said.

Portland General Electric also cut power to the area at the fire bureau’s request.

The fire in the city’s core also posed dangers for drivers. Transportation officials closed Interstate 405 for about two hours, and surface streets were closed in the immediate area because of low visibility from heavy smoke.

John Rosenthal lives several blocks from the building.

“It’s just nonstop hoses going in there,” he said of firefighters flooding the building with water.

From Blake Stroud’s apartment about a half mile away, he could see a smoke plume “oscillating between white and dark smoke,” he said.

“At the bottom of the plume you could see the flames,” he said.

The cause of the blaze wasn’t immediately known, but it appears to have started on the third floor and jumped to the fourth, Graves said.

Around 1 p.m., the fire had “maxed out” but likely would burn until Wednesday, Graves said. It’s unlikely residents will be allowed back inside, he added.

A complaint filed with the Bureau of Development Services late last year said the apartment building didn’t have smoke, gas and carbon-monoxide detectors, had exposed electrical wiring, and had “severe leaks” leading to mold and mildew, records show.

Inspectors did not find missing alarms during a walk-through of the building in December, case files show. Most of the 10 code violations that were discovered during that walk-through were found to be fixed during a follow-up inspection on Monday by city inspectors, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

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The Oregon Occupational Health and Safety Administration will hold public hearings about the new excessive heat and wildfire smoke rules currently proposed.

At the start of the month, OSHA released the final draft rules on the excessive heat and wildfire smoke. The rules are now within the public comment period that will close on March 18.

Public hearing dates are:

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During the upcoming hearings, a coalition that includes the Oregon AFL-CIO, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, The Oregon Environmental Council, Northwest Workers’ Justice Project, and Climate Jobs PDX will testify on the changes they want to see made to the final sets of rules.

Among removing loopholes in the rules, the coalition would like to set the trigger for the respirator requirement at an Air Quality Index of 201 instead 250, as well as the removal for the  exemptions when the work is considered “light.” It would also like to close a loophole for protecting workers from excessive heat in farmworker housing so that all farmworkers are well protected.

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MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — An extension granted by the state gives survivors of the 2020 Labor Day wildfires in Southern Oregon an extra six months of FEMA housing.

FEMA guidelines call for housing assistance only up to 18 months after a declared disaster, giving the survivors of the 2020 fires until mid-March to find new homes.

But FEMA spokesperson Paul Corah said finding permanent housing for people is slow going in an area with low housing inventory, KTVL-TV reported.

Typically extensions are given in three-month increments, but the severity of the damage in the Rogue Valley prompted the six months. Of 190 units supplied to fire survivor families, 154 are still in use in Jackson County.

Housing programs in Marion, Lane, Lincoln and Linn Counties were given similar extensions.
Residents have been able to stay in the FEMA units while paying only utilities, but those who stay beyond April 1 will start paying a sliding-scale rent.

“FEMA’s working with the survivors about what that scale is. The minimum is $50,” Corah said.
Corah said FEMA also has a sales program, allowing residents to purchase the units.

The Oregon wildfire season in 2020 destroyed more than 4,000 homes, killed nine people and tore through 1.1 million acres. Almost all the damage occurred over a dramatic 72-hour period. It was a wake-up call for the Pacific Northwest as climate change brings destructive blazes to wet places and urban landscapes.

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By MARTHA BELLISLE
The Associated Press

The winter grassland fire that blew up along Colorado’s Front Range was rare, experts say, but similar events will be more common in the coming years as climate change sucks moisture out of plants, suburbs grow in fire-prone areas and people continue to spark destructive blazes.

“These fires are different from most of the fires we’ve been seeing across the West, in the sense that they’re grass fires and they’re occurring in the winter,” said Jonathan Overpeck, a professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. “Ultimately, things are going to continue to get worse unless we stop climate change.”

Flames swept over drought-stricken grassy fields and neighborhoods northwest of Denver last week with alarming speed, propelled by gusts up to 105 mph. Tens of thousands of residents were ordered to flee with little notice.

“I came out of Whole Foods, which is about a half mile from ground zero, and felt like I had to jump in my car and make a dash for my life as the smoke and wind and nearby flames were engulfing the area,” Susie Pringle of Lafayette stated in an email. “It was scary!”

Two people were missing as of Sunday and at least seven were injured. Officials estimated nearly 1,000 homes and other buildings were destroyed.

The blaze burned at least 9.4 square miles. The cause is still under investigation, though experts say it’s clear what allowed the fire to spread so fast.

“With any snow on the ground, this absolutely would not have happened in the way that it did,” said Keith Musselman, a snow hydrologist in Boulder. “It was really the grass and the dry landscape that allowed this fire to jump long distances in a short period of time.”

Three ingredients were needed to start this fire – fuels, a warm climate and an ignition source, said Jennifer Balch, a fire scientist with the University of Colorado, Boulder. “And then you add a fourth ingredient, wind, and that’s when it became a disaster.”

Temperatures in Colorado between June and December were the warmest on record, Balch said. The grasses grew thick because they had a wet spring, but saw no moisture until snow flurries arrived Friday night.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Sunday called the blaze a “a horrific convergence” of destructive wind gusts that hit the area following the unseasonably dry and warm winter.

“We know that with the climate we face higher risks,” Polis said. “Right here in city and suburbs.”

Colorado is a dry landscape filled with flammable material for much of the year, Balch said, “and those chunks of time are getting longer with climate change.”

The lesson learned throughout this event is that the “wildland-urban interface is way bigger than we thought it was,” Balch said. That means a wider area is under threat of wildfire.

That border area – where structures built by people meet undeveloped land prone to fire – has always been the foothills, she said. Firefighters in Boulder consider the interface west of Broadway – a busy road that passes through the center of town. But Thursday’s fire sparked east of that line, next to thousands of houses that have sprouted up on the east side of the Rockies since the 1990s, Balch said.

“There were stretches between Denver and Fort Collins that had no development, but now it’s just like one long continuous development track,” Balch said. “And those homes are built with materials that are very flammable – wood siding, asphalt roofing.

“We need to completely rethink how we’re building homes.”

The other important change is understanding how these fires start in the first place, she said.

“There’s no natural source of ignition at this time of year; there’s no lightning,” she said. “It’s either going to be infrastructure-related or it’s going to be human-caused.”

“The way we live in the landscape and our daily activities make us vulnerable,” she said.

Over the past two decades, 97 percent of wildfires were started by people, according to a recent study by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Causes have ranged from accidents at construction sites, to a car with a hot tailpipe, to tossed cigarettes.

“I like to say we need Smokey Bear in the suburbs,” she said. “We need to be thinking about how our daily activities can contribute ignitions or sparks that start wildfires.”

Unless people stop climate change by reducing use of fossil fuels, wildfires will threaten communities, Overpeck said.

“There’s little doubt in my mind that the conditions conducive to really bad wildfire, whether it’s grass or forest, are only going to get worse,” he said.

As more people move to areas where wildfires occur, the threat increases.

“We’re building towns and cities and infrastructure and so it’s just a matter of time before we have whole towns burning down like we had in California and events like this in Colorado.”

Editor’s note: Associated Press reporter Brittany Peterson contributed to this report.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A fire broke out Monday amid the wreckage of the Hard Rock Hotel construction project that partially collapsed last year in New Orleans and was put out by mid-afternoon. No injuries were reported.

The fire began when a pile of roofing material ignited during demolition work at the site, city officials said. The fire started shortly before 9 a.m., sending thick black smoke over the city’s central business district and the nearby French Quarter.

As firefighters poured water on the blaze, officials said, it was not considered a threat to nearby structures, although people living and working near the site were advised to to shut off air conditioners and external air intakes.

Flames were out by mid-afternoon, according to The Times-Picayune’The New Orleans Advocate.

The hotel was under construction last October when it collapsed, killing three workers. Demolition work began in May after months of disagreements between the city and developers over how best to bring down the remains of the unstable 18-story structure. Two bodies remained in the wreckage until they were safely removed in August.

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SALEM, Ore. (AP) — New data shows the cost of fighting wildfires in Oregon reached an all-time high $514.6 million in 2018.

According to data from Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, Oregon’s costs skyrocketed past last year’s record-setting total of $447 million.

The Statesman Journal reports that all totaled, Oregon had 1,880 fires that burned 846,411 acres or 1,322 square miles — an area larger than Rhode Island.

The number of acres burned isn’t a record, but it’s well above historic averages and continues a trend of more extreme fire seasons.

The most expensive wildfires were in southwest Oregon, where a mid-July lightning storm ignited 160 wildfires during a historically hot and dry summer.

The biggest conflagration was the combination Klondike and Taylor Creek fires, which burned together west of Grants Pass. Combined, they torched 220,000 acres and cost $128 million.

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HOOD RIVER, Ore. (AP) — Fire officials say a blaze that began near a home in Hood River spread to surrounding timber and brush and forced the overnight evacuation of dozens of people staying at a lodge overlooking the Columbia River Gorge.

The Hood River Sheriff’s Office says the fire was reported late Saturday near a residence.

Crews helped about 120 people staying at the Westcliff Lodge evacuate the area. A first responder was treated for a leg injury but no one else was injured.

The Oregon Department of Forestry said Sunday that the fire is burning in a rugged area of cliffs making access difficult. The agency says helicopters will help drop waters in those steep areas.

The fire has burned about five acres northwest of Hood River between Interstate 84 and the Columbia River.

Railroad lines north of the fire have been closed as a precaution.

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