Backyard smoker sets fire to garage, tree

The house in the Parkrose Heights neighborhood wasn’t damaged, but the garage looks quite charred …

Portland Fire & Rescue rigs fill this outer East Portland street, in the Parkrose Heights neighborhood, when a meat smoker sets a nearby garage ablaze.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

“When was driving to my house in the neighborhood I saw a lot of smoke,” witness Jerome Morrison said about the residential fire in the Parkrose Heights neighborhood that started just after noon on Wednesday, July 29.

“By the time I parked, and walked back down the block to find out what was making so much smoke, I could see that the big [fir] tree in the back yard was on fire – and so was the back of their garage,” Morrison told East Portland News.

Firefighters working to extinguish the burning corner of the garage are lost in the smoke.

Being dispatched at 12:35 p.m., the Engine Company of Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) Sumner Station #12 on NE Sandy Boulevard, across from The Grotto, was the first unit on scene at the house, located at 10829 NE Morris Street.

While first-arriving firefighters hooked up their water supply line and started fighting the fire in the back corner of the detached garage, members of other crews, arriving moments after Engine 12, were sent to look for potential victims.

Although its back is charred, fast work by firefighters kept this large garage mostly intact.

“It appears that a meat smoker of some kind ignited dry grass; the flames spread to the corner of the detached garage, and into the tree,” said a PF&R Battalion Chief.

No further information, including the amount of causality loss from the fire, is available from PF&R at this writing.

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