A motorhome parked one block west of Old Town’s Lan Su Chinese Garden caught fire early Monday morning, sending billowing clouds of thick, dark smoke into the sky.
A video of the fire appears to show a motorhome parked next to one of the neighborhood’s signature red lampposts engulfed in flames shortly before 4 a.m. A small fire is also visible burning on the sidewalk next to the vehicle.
A car parked in the adjacent driveway appears to back away from the fire.
A neighborhood resident, who asked for their name not to be used out of safety concerns, said Portland Fire & Rescue arrived shortly after the fire began. The person awoke to what they thought were the sounds of gunshots. The person looked out of their window and realized the sounds were coming from the vehicle, which they said had been parked in the same spot for several weeks.
No one was injured in the fire, said a fire bureau spokesperson Sean Whalen. A witness reported seeing the motorhome’s resident get out of the vehicle and leave the scene before firefighters arrived, Whalen said.
Portland Fire & Rescue is investigating the fire, he said.
The fire did not affect the Lan Su Chinese Garden, said spokesperson Elizabeth Nye.
Another vehicle fire Feb. 25 destroyed a converted bread delivery truck in Northeast Portland’s Argay Terrace neighborhood. Firefighters who extinguished the blaze went inside the truck but did not see the body of a 38-year-old woman who had died before the blaze or during it. Four days later, the vehicle’s co-owner returned to find the woman buried amid the fire debris inside the truck, officials said.
Portland Fire & Rescue and Portland Police are investigating that fire. Fire officials declined to release additional information about the fire, including the woman’s identity, citing the active investigation.
According to Fire Bureau data, firefighters responded to another passenger vehicle fire in the same area of Old Town on Feb. 28. Firefighters could not determine what caused that fire, an entry in the bureau’s database shows.
Portland Fire & Rescue has responded to 99 reported fires so far this year involving motor homes, RVs, campers or passenger vehicles, resulting in one injury and one death, Fire Bureau data shows. Firefighters responded to 65 such fires during the same timeframe last year.
— Catalina Gaitán, cgaitan@oregonian.com, @catalingaitan_
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