A wholesale import gift shop in southeast Portland was gutted by a four-alarm fire Wednesday morning. The blaze at Gifts and Toys Inc. started around 4:45 A.M Wednesday.
The shop, located at southeast 80th and Stark sells novelty gifts imported from Asia. Earlier, fire officials said the blaze started at a neighboring printing business, Jack's Litho. That building was saved, but it suffered water damage.
Jim Stiffler, owner of Jack's Litho told KATU News that his business appears to be okay.
"The firemen put a bunch of visqueen over the presses and all the printing equipment, and the computer equipment," said Stiffler. "They said there was going to be a lot of water inside."
The owner of the gift shop was not as lucky, and is distraught over her total loss.
Stark and Washington Streets remain closed between 80th and 82nd as a result of the blaze. Stark is expected to remain closed for most of the day.
By 8:00 A.M, the wall on the south-side of the building had entirely collapsed, and the wall on the east-side had partially collapsed and was bearing its weight on an adjacent power pole. Portland Fire spokesperson Neil Heesaker said further collapsing of other walls of the building was not likely.
Heesaker said the business had a history of minor violations that had since been corrected, there was no reason to believe the business had any current violations.
Inside the building were numerous boxes of cloth dolls
