Four-Alarm Fire Collapses 8-Story Centennial Mills in Portland
Updated
Updated · Willamette Week · Aug 3
Four-Alarm Fire Collapses 8-Story Centennial Mills in Portland
3 articles · Updated · Willamette Week · Aug 3
Summary
More than 100 firefighters watched from outside as a four-alarm blaze collapsed every floor of vacant Centennial Mills, an eight-story riverfront warehouse in Portland's Pearl District.
Structural instability kept crews from entering the 116-year-old building; Portland Fire & Rescue said thick timber floors fell inward, feeding flames at the base and sending smoke upward like a chimney.
Northwest Naito Parkway was closed overnight because the site sits within the building's collapse zone, while officials planned 3D mapping Monday to assess the structure and trace the fire's source.
No fatalities were reported in the fire, which spread from a relatively small top-floor blaze to engulf the entire building in about 35 minutes, according to a nearby resident.
Centennial Mills had stood vacant through decades of failed redevelopment plans after the city bought the former flour mill in 2000 and sold it to private owners in 2023.