Electric scooter fire forces residents out of NE Portland apartment building

A fire in Northeast Portland chased several people out of an apartment building Tuesday morning. According to Portland Fire & Rescue, crews responded to a report at 8:50 a.m. from a resident in the Piedmont Neighborhood building saying there was a fire and that he heard an explosion. When crews arrived five minutes later, they heard alarm bells ringing and saw people in front of the building. When firefighters entered the building, they followed a trail of smoke which started out light on the first floor but became much thicker on the second and third floors. The east stairwell of the building was also inundated with smoke, as well as water, from the active sprinkler.
KOIN-TV NBC 6 Portland

Garibaldi Fire employs new jet boat

After taking delivery of a new jet boat in February, the Garibaldi Fire Department is focusing on training personnel to operate the new vessel and has already used the vessel to respond to two emergency calls. On a recent evening, the Headlight Herald tagged along on a joint-training with Garibaldi Fire and the Netarts-Oceanside Fire District in Netarts Bay and experienced the boat’s capabilities firsthand. The flat-bottomed, 21-foot, jet-propelled boat is powered by a 2.3-liter Ford Ecoboost engine and is the first of its kind for the county’s first responders. It joins jet skis operated by the Netarts-Oceanside and Nehalem Fire Districts to expand the water-rescue capabilities of local fire departments and districts. Funding for the $100,000 purchase came from an Oregon Department of Emergency Management grant awarded in 2021, and the vessel was built by River Wild Boats of Grants Pass, Oregon.
Tillamook Headlight Herald - Metered Site

Semi truck almost tips, spilling diesel and halting traffic in Grants Pass

VIDEO/PHOTOS: A semi truck driving along Fruitdale Drive caused traffic to come to a stop after it nearly tipped over while turning onto Williams Highway. The semi truck did leak some diesel fuel onto the roadway, but luckily it did not spark a fire. According to the Grants Pass Fire Marshal there were no injuries and a tow truck was working to lift the semi. ODOT is working to clean up the fuel spill. Officials say the on-ramp to Highway 199 for drivers traveling northeast was temporarily closed.
KOBI-TV NBC 5 Medford

Western wildfire camera network the ’largest of its kind,’ University of Oregon says

PHOTOS: Wildland firefighters in the western United States will now have the world’s largest public-facing network of wildfire detection cameras at their disposal, the University of Oregon says. The AI-assisted system delivers early alerts about new fires across the West, improving response times and helping firefighters extinguish small fires before they become resource-intensive conflagrations. University of Oregon’s Oregon Hazards Lab, known as OHAZ, and its partners at University of Nevada, Reno and the University of California, San Diego have helped make the advance possible. They have now unified their individual wildfire monitoring networks under a single software platform called ALERTWest.
KVAL-TV CBS 13 Eugene

Looking Back at ’The Blast’ that devastated downtown Roseburg in 1959

PHOTOS: BLAST, BLAZE KILL 17 AT ROSEBURG,” read the headline on the front page of The Register-Guard on August 7, 1959. The official number of dead was later lowered to 14 as medical examiners were able to enter the area in the days after the blast. More than 120 others were injured. An eight-block area on the fringe of the downtown was devastated. The event became known simply as “The Blast.”Subsequent reports estimated 300 businesses within a 30-block radius sustained some damage from the explosion. Damages were estimated between $10 million to $12 million. The cause was determined to be an early morning fire in the Dent-Gerretsen building on Pine Street that spread to a parked truck loaded with two tons of dynamite and more than four tons of ammonium nitrate.
The Register-Guard - Metered Site

Follow Up: Portland Police investigating claims of responsibility in arson fire that burned 17 police cars

Portland police are investigating a social media post claiming responsibility for an arson fire last week that burned 17 Police Bureau cars. Police originally said 15 cars were burned in the fire last Thursday, but increased that number by two Monday as their investigation continues. Also Monday, a group calling itself “Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Brigade” said people had cut through a fence at the bureau’s training facility and set 10 fires in anticipation of a police response at Portland State University’s Millar Library. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators had occupied the library for three days and the university administration asked city police to intervene. Police on Friday arrested 12 people, including four students, after the initial sweep. Police said in an email that they are “aware of the online post claiming responsibility and that is part of the investigation.”
OregonLive.com - The Oregonian