St. Charles cancels surgeries

St. Charles Bend has canceled all elective surgeries until Friday because of a fire in the hospital’s central processing unit.

A machine used to wash surgical equipment caught fire at 5:45 a.m. Wednesday, according to hospital officials. Sprinklers were activated and Bend Fire Department responded. The fire was extinguished by 6:40 a.m. Fire officials said the fire was caused by the overheating and subsequent failure of a heating element within the washer unit.

Hospital officials said there was some smoke and fire damage to the area, but no injuries. All elective surgeries on Wednesday and today were canceled.

The hospital will still be able to handle emergency surgical procedures, hospital officials said. It will resume some elective surgeries Friday, taking the most critical patients first, but will reschedule some surgeries for next week.

Man arrested in gun incident

A man who allegedly pointed a gun at three residents of Deschutes River Woods late Tuesday was arrested by Bend Police.

Just after 11 p.m., a resident of the 58000 block of Cheyenne Road reported that three people had recently left a residence there after a confrontation about personal property, according to a news release from the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.

One of the three, later identified as William Paden Hill, 27, of Bend, allegedly pointed a gun at the three residents of the Cheyenne Road address. Hill reportedly fired the gun in the air three times as he drove away. Police located Hill’s vehicle near the intersection of SE Third Street and Reed Market Road later that night and arrested him, but were unable to locate his handgun, the release said.

Hill was arrested on suspicion of unlawful use of a weapon, menacing, felon in possession of a firearm, possession of heroin and a probation violation, and is being held at the Deschutes County jail. He was still in the jail Wednesday afternoon.

A Deschutes County Search and Rescue deputy and eight Search and Rescue volunteers located the gun the next morning near Brookswood Boulevard.

Tetherow Road will be closed

A section of Tetherow Road northwest of Redmond will be closed to traffic starting Monday for roadwork related to the Tetherow Bridge replacement project.

The section of road is on the north side of the Deschutes River and east of the bridge. It is expected to be closed until Sept. 16 while crews work to widen the existing road by 5 to 7 feet.

The river closed to recreational boating in the area earlier this week due to the construction and is expected to reopen Friday.

It will close again to boaters late on Sept. 25 and reopen Sept. 29.

Brush fire put out east of Bend

A brush fire burned 1.9 acres on Bureau of Land Management land east of Terry Drive, off Stenkamp Road, on Wednesday morning, threatening 17 homes before federal firefighters put it out.

Firefighters responded to the fire around 11:30 a.m., according to a Bend Fire Department news release. Local firefighters protected the homes while U.S. Forest Service and BLM personnel extinguished the fire.

The cause is still under investigation.

Structure fire causes smoke damage

A small structure fire on the 2100 block of NE Third Street on Wednesday caused smoke damage to a building that’s under renovation.

According to a news release, the Bend Fire Department responded to the fire at around 8:30 a.m. and quickly extinguished it, which was inside a wall at the rear of the building. After opening up the wall to make sure the fire was completely put out, crews determined the most likely cause was an improperly discarded cigarette.

The cigarette ignited bark dust that was near the wall, the release states, which caught the wall on fire.

The fire department reminded the community to leave 6 to 12 inches between landscaping bark and combustible structural components.

— Bulletin staff reports