Fire destroys commercial building under construction near Redmond Airport; cause undetermined

(Update: Details from Redmond fire official; Verizon says cell service restored)

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Investigators have been unable to determine the cause of a fire that destroyed a large commercial building under construction near the Redmond Airport late Wednesday afternoon, sending up thick, black smoke and possibly causing a large cellphone service outage.

Deschutes County 911 dispatchers received many calls just before 4 p.m. reporting a building on fire in the area of Southwest Veterans Way and Lake Road, Redmond Fire Marshal Tom Mooney said.

Arriving firefighters found flames coming through the roof, he said. They quickly pulled hand lines and set up a master stream from the ladder truck to protect nearby buildings. Due to their quick actions, Mooney said they were able to contain the fire to the one building.

Shortly after crews’ arrival, the roof of the building collapsed, followed by the exterior walls. No firefighters or civilians were injured.

The building was under construction and not fully finished in the interior, so wooden structural members were fully exposed, allowing the fire to spread rapidly through the structure, the fire official said.

After conducting interviews and processing the scene, investigators classified the fire’s cause as undetermined.

Several people reported cellphone service out over a wide area of Redmond involving Verizon customers, and some AT&T customers reported similar issues.

Verizon spokeswoman Karen Schulz said Wednesday evening, "A fiber outage is causing a temporary service interruption for some customers in Redmond. Our engineers are aware and are working with our vendors to resolve the issue." She said Thursday that service was fully restored by 6:30 a.m.