HILLSBORO, Ore. — One person was found dead following a fire at a duplex in Hillsboro Tuesday morning, according to Hillsboro Fire & Rescue.
Around 7:45 a.m., multiple 911 callers reported seeing heavy, black smoke coming from the duplex near the intersection of East Main Street and Southeast 28th Avenue, Hillsboro Fire & Rescue said.
A Hillsboro police officer tried to get in contact with the resident of the duplex but couldn't get through the front door due to the amount of fire, smoke and heat, fire officials said. The call was upgraded to a first alarm, bringing in more firefighters and resources.
The first fire engine on the scene started attacking the fire while other firefighters got on the roof to ventilate the home, releasing trapped gas and smoke. At the back of the home, crews encountered heavy flames and back smoke.
A search of the duplex ultimately found an adult man dead, along with a dog. No one else was injured, according to Hillsboro Fire & Rescue. The name of the man who died has not been released.
A KGW photojournalist who was at the scene tweeted that two people in an adjacent unit safely escaped the building.
"It is two units. Because it is a duplex, they had fire involvement on both sides of the duplex, so they had to make access to both sides independently," Piseth Pich, a spokesperson for Hillsboro Fire & Rescue, told KGW. "But they were able to extinguish the fire pretty quickly."
Damage from the fire was mostly contained to the first unit, but the other unit did see impacts from smoke and heat. Fire investigators are working to determine the cause.
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