Ore. firefighters met with 'hoarding' while battling blaze
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PORTLAND, Ore. – Firefighters had to deal with clutter from a “hoarder” as they tried to put out a house fire in North Portland.
Firefighters arrived to find heavy smoke coming from a house on North Chautauqua on Thursday morning. They entered the house, but quickly ran into the clutter, according to Portland Fire and Rescue spokesman Lt. Damon Simmons.
They navigated through “significant clutter” and despite near black-out conditions in the house, they found fire in the basement, main floor and in the attic.
"Close your eyes. That's what you can see in this fire," Simmons said. "It's smoke, it's hot and they're unable to locate the fire because of these conditions."
Since the clutter was dangerous to firefighters and because the house was vacant, commanders decided to pull firefighters out of the house and fight the flames from the outside, Simmons said.
Neighbors said the owner of the home died a few months ago and his or her possessions were left behind.
Nobody was injured in the fire. It’s not yet clear how it started and investigators will likely be on the scene through the day to determine the cause, Simmons said.
Simmons said hoarding can increase the likelihood of a fire starting when items come in contact with heat sources. Fires in hoarding houses are also often more severe because there are more combustible items.
He gave a KATU reporter a tour of the burned out house to demonstrate just how dangerous the situation was. Much of the floor was covered with junk and other items.
"You can see some of the insulation and things that have fallen down, but that level you see there, above the floor level, is solid cutter," Simmons explained. "They're crawling over this material and this material also creates a heavier fire load, which means there's more stuff to burn."
The clutter on the floor of this particular house was one to two feet deep.
"When we have to pull out of a fire like that the fire gets more extreme," Simmons said. "The material that's burning just keeps falling down on top of that, so they're having to dig through that just to find the origin of the fire."
If you need help dealing with a hoarding situation, Simmons said you can call 211 to find resources or call the mental health crisis line at (503) 988-4888.
Arson? What "benefactor" wouldn't want to light a match to that place?
Some don't want mental help, they don't think they need it. It is sad, I have a close friend like this, she doesn't see anything wrong with it.
"the owner of the home died a few months ago and his or her possessions were left behind"
Some hoard junk and others hoard animals and it's still tragic that adequate mental health help isn't available for them.
 @jcman Better that under need of mental help than going out on shooting sprees.
Its sad because, this person probably wasn't always like this and this house; it was probably nice, neat and happy at some point and here, we see the end result of years of this poor person's decline, it makes me REALLY sad.
@My-celiums I noticed on a lot of hoarding shows, the people didn't start hoarding until someone close to them passed away. Its scary knowing that anyone could get like this.
This is sad. I know people like this and they won't even part with a piece of scrap paper.
 @blobux Me too - my mom - and they  live in a mobile home.  I am terrified of something like this happening, because they will end 'up in smoke' and not in a Cheech and Chong kind of way.  It's a mental disorder of some sort that we normal people cannot understand.  People like this will not call 211 for help, no way.
Oh goodness, its my neighbors house. She is real bad on hoarding, and I have been working with her for over six months to get things clean. It seems that every time I get a room clean, she has it full of stuff within three days. She actually gave me her keys to clean out all of her 8 huge storage units, but I had a hard time with one of them because everything was from 1930 or earlier. I understand how hard this is on someone and I hope with the patience and love of family and friends she is able to get past this.Â
 @Just my say It says the owner died a few months ago.
 @ValleyBronco I got that, i was meaning to say they are able to get past this, I got caught up thinking about my neighbor.Â
 @Just my say gotcha, sorry, my newborn ate part of my brain and I don't always catch on too quickly. : P
And I thought MY house was cluttered...
That's just hoar-ibble.
 @UnderAbridge Fail.