A father and his two young children barely escaped from their apartment this morning when a fire broke out at approximately 5:30 a.m. The second-story apartment was one of four units in Building 3300 at the Canyon Park Apartments at 4200 S.W. 107^th Avenue in Beaverton.

According to the father, Sergio Garcia, age 32, he and his two children were sleeping together in his bedroom at the time of the fire. He was awakened by the sound of breaking glass and discovered fire in an adjacent bedroom and heavy smoke completely filling the apartment. He immediately grabbed his 13-month old daughter and 3-year old son and exited the apartment. He began knocking on neighbors’ doors, telling them to call 911.

Crews arrived within minutes of the 911 call to find flames and heavy smoke coming from a front bedroom window and tenants indicating that they believed everyone was safely outside. Crews immediately attacked the fire through the upper window and then proceeded up the stairwell with hose lines to make an interior attack. In-coming firefighters made a search of all four apartments to confirm that everyone was outside. They found two occupants on an outside balcony on the rear side of the building who were assisted down with a ladder.

Karen Eubanks, Public Information Officer stated, "Looking at the circumstances of this fire, this family was extremely fortunate to have even escaped this fire." It is unknown if there was a working smoke alarm in the apartment. The incident is also yet another reminder about the benefits of residential sprinkler systems. The 30-year old building was not required to have sprinkler systems. Eubanks added, "An automatic residential sprinkler system would have contained and/or extinguished the fire in the room where it started." (Note: The Fire District was recently successful in getting the 7 cities it protects and Washington County to adopt an appendix to the State Building Code. The appendix now requires automatic sprinkler systems in all NEW apartment construction that is two or more stories, or has 16 or more units (single story).)

Fire investigators remain on scene in an effort to determine what caused the fire. Fire damage estimates are pending at this time. The Garcia family (including Sergio’s wife, Rachel, age 26, at work at the time of the fire) and the three occupants in the below apartment are being moved to another apartment in the complex. The American Red Cross was called to the scene to assist. ###