An employee from NW Natural Gas happened to be driving by a house at 3103 S.E. 52nd Avenue, on Friday morning, March 13 – saw fire at the residence – and called it in to 9-1-1 operators, who dispatched the incident to Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) crews at 8:50 a.m.
“The gas company worker stopped to help before our crews arrived,” acknowledged PF&R Public Information Officer Rick Graves. “He assisted an injured person across the street to get the person away from the burning building, after noticing a large oxygen cylinder there.
“Shortly after they moved away from the house, the oxygen cylinder ‘burned off’, producing a brief fireball as the oxygen rapidly ignited.”…