Home improvement materials ignite S.E. home

It was a nice evening for shooting hoops, in the driveway of his family’s home on S.E. Lincoln Street, east of S.E 60th Avenue, on July 15. But Jacob Duilio said his basketball practice was interrupted by wisps of smoke coming from behind a neighbor’s house.

“Right away, there was more thick, black smoke than I’ve ever seen,” Duilio told THE BEE. “It looked like the whole house was catching on fire. While I ran around to the front of the house [on S.E. 60th Avenue], I called 9-1-1. The fire trucks were here in a couple of minutes.”

According to official records, Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) crews were dispatched at 6:16 pm and arrived at the home, in the 2300 block of SE 60th Avenue, at 6:18 pm.

PF&R Engine Company 19, the first of three stations to respond, radioed back to the fire dispatcher, “There’s heavy fire coming from the back of the house.”

“Our neighbor across the street came over and woke us up,” recalled Mike Hupp, whose home is directly north of the burned house. “They told us to get out of our house.”

Hupp said he got his garden hose and sprayed water on the roof and side of his home in an effort to keep it, too, from catching on fire. “I did the best I could, but the fire was just too intense. I drove our motor home out of the driveway; I think it’s OK.”

“My neighbor watched as the vinyl siding on his house melted and ran down the wall facing the inferno,” Hupp added. “I think the Styrofoam insulation kept our house from catching on fire. The fire next door was everywhere — the whole back area. Fire was coming out of the roof, back, and sides — the flames were burning higher than the trees.”

Although the front of the home looked relatively unaffected, the back and north side of the house burned fiercely.

The Battalion Chief on-scene, PF&R Deputy Chief Ed Fitzgerald, gathered information from neighbors, as firefighters cut vent and water holes in the roof, and attacked the fire from behind the house for more about 40 minutes, before completely dousing the flames.


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