Portland Matches Dismal Record With Death in Christmas Eve House Fire

The murder and traffic death counts also rose over the holiday.

Firefighters in North Portland, autumn 2020. (Brian Burk)

A fatal house fire in North Portland on Christmas Eve means Portland has tied another bleak record.

An elderly woman found dead by Portland Fire & Rescue at 6405 N Greeley Ave. shortly before midnight on Dec. 24 was the 15th person killed in a residential fire this year. That matches Portland’s single-year record, set in 1994.

Related: The extraordinary death toll of 2021.

Portland has already set a single-year record for homicides in 2021 (with 84 as of Dec. 9) and is nearing the highest one-year toll of traffic fatalities (59 as of Dec. 21), depending on how the number is tallied.

Those numbers increased over the holiday weekend.

Shortly before 9 pm on Christmas Eve, a man was shot and killed on the Bus Mall in Old Town, at the corner of Northwest 6th Avenue and Davis Street. Police say the suspects fled the scene. They haven’t publicly identified the victim.

At 2 pm Christmas Day, a driver struck a person riding a skateboard at the corner of North Interstate and Mississippi avenues. The skateboarder died at the scene. The driver fled, and police are investigating the death as a hit-and-run.

Related: The intersections where Portlanders are hit by cars are often on the same streets where gunfire erupts.

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