Firefighters rescued two people from a powerful 2-alarm house fire in Hillsboro Thursday afternoon, officials said. Both victims “suffered life-threatening injuries” and are in a hospital.
Fire crews arrived in the 1700 block of Southeast Oak Street shortly before 2 p.m. to find “heavy smoke and fire conditions” at the house, Hillsboro Fire & Rescue reported. Firefighters entered the house and found two people on the second floor.
The smoke and heat from the blaze made it difficult for firefighters, and so crews set up electric fans to “help move heated smoke and gases out of the home and improve visibility for all fire crews inside,” the fire department said.
Firefighters rescued both people through a second-story window, using a ladder from outside to reach the second floor as well as chainsaws to cut through part of the wall below the window, officials said. They searched the rest of the house and found no one else.
It took about an hour for firefighters to extinguish the blaze, the fire department said. A team remained onsite overnight to ensure there was no “reignitions.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The names of the injured people in the house have not been released, and their current conditions are not known.
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