June 21 – A Portland woman woke up around 5 a.m. to flames and smoke coming from the apartment building next door.
Ruth Ridge, 48, said she got a better look at the fire through her bathroom window and then woke her nephew. She took him and her chihuahua to Beal’s Ice Cream down the street to escape the fumes.
“There’s a lot of damage,” Ridge said. “I was worried about my house.”
The fire at the three-apartment building at 23 Pembroke St. in Portland was reported shortly after 5 a.m. Friday, said Sean Donaghue, spokesman for the Portland Fire Department.
He said the department sounded a second alarm at 5:43 a.m. Friday and a third alarm at 5:57 a.m. to bring more crews to the scene.
The call came after another fire was reported in the same apartment building during afternoon storms on Thursday afternoon. The seven people living there were then evacuated, so no one was in the building at the time of the fire Friday morning, Donaghue said.
But he said the two fires do not appear to be related or suspicious.
Firefighters were still actively fighting the fire at 8 a.m. Around 9:30 a.m., Donaghue said crews were working to find and extinguish any hot spots. The building appeared to have fire damage near the roof and several windows were broken. It appeared crew members were working on all three floors.
Veranda Street remained closed between Washington Avenue and Sherwood Street as of 10:30 a.m. Fire officials are asking people to avoid the area.
This story will be updated.
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