All evacuate safely, blaze confined to small area; Friday reopening planned

By Barney Lerten, KTVZ.COM

A welder working on a piece of a new non-profit skate park in northeast Bend accidentally sparked a fire Thursday evening that quickly spread, forcing evacuation of about 20 skaters and others inside the building, investigators said.

The fire was reported around 5:46 p.m. at the Truck Stop Skate Park, a non-profit indoor park at 1307 NE First St. (near Greenwood Avenue) that only opened Oct. 9, said Deputy Fire Marshal Dan Derlacki.

The "occupants were working on the skate park and were welding a piece of the park when the hot slag from the welding operation landed on highly combustible materials stored right behind the apparatus," Derlacki said in a news release.

The fire quickly grew, despite efforts by several people to put it out with extinguishers, Derlacki said, so "they called 911 and started getting everyone out."

"We ran outside and we all panicked, and it was - it was kind of scary," said skateboarder Demetri Bales.

Derlacki said a welder was using a torch to put the final bracket on the back of the donated satellite dish feature to complete the revamp. A spark went through the metal, touched foam and erupted.

Skater Kent Callister said, "I was just skateboarding, and just saw a huge flame."

"We were just watching the guy welding there and saw just a huge flame come up. Everyone just yelling 'Fire!' so I decided to help out, just grab a few buckets and threw it on the satellite (dish) - the main feature of the satellite dish was just going up in flames."

All of the people were evacuated before the first-arriving firefighters found smoke coming from the roof and out the open doors on the east side of the 10,000-square-foot building, the fire official said.

Adjacent streets were closed during the firefighting work as skaters watched from the street, at least one of whom shot video of the flames with a cell phone before being evacuated.

"I was scared," said skater Tatum Temple. "I was worried - it just got built and remodeled."

The fire was contained to the northeast corner of the skate area. as fire crews had the blaze knocked down before 6:20 p.m. and began clearing smoke from the building, Derlacki said. Because it's nearly 30 feet high, it took a few hours with high-capacity fans to get all the smoke out, he said.

Fire crews also checked the roof for structural stability, he said, and found no structural damage to the building. The fire department estimated a loss of $10,000 to the contents, mostly in the cost to clean and get the smoke smell out of the building.

Owner Steven White told NewsChannel 21 Thursday night he expected the skate park (http://truckstopskatepark.com/) to open as usual Friday. He said only the foam behind a satellite dish ramp (using a dish donated by Bend Radio Group) burned, and that no ramps were damaged and the smoke had been cleared.

White says the place is a haven for street skaters to come, where they can work on tricks without getting hassled in public. But with a place full of wooden ramps, it was fortunate there wasn't a lot more damage, or worse.

Derlacki told NewsChannel 21 that while no citations are being issued at this time, the building will need to be checked for any structural hazards before it can reopen.

With the blaze contained to a small area, he said a Friday reopening "is not out of the question," but there will be follow-up inspections to ensure code compliance - as well as "some education on welding safety."

In his news release, Derlacki said welding operations should have adequate clearance from combustibles, to limit the risk of just such a fire starting.

He also said that a fire extinguisher or other means to put out any fire need to be on hand throughout the operation, and someone should be in the welding area for at least a half-hour afterwards as a fire watch, to make sure a spark doesn't smolder and cause a fire.