The Portland Fire joined the WNBA in 2000 as an expansion team, much as the revived Fire is rejoining in 2026. The team played three seasons at the Rose Garden before folding.
The original Fire drafted Jackie Stiles as the No. 4 overall pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft. Stiles was the NCAA's leading scorer and was also the first D1 women's player to score more than 1,000 points in a season. In fact, she held the D1 record for the most career points — 3,393 — for 20 years.
The Portland Fire folded after a buyer for the team couldn't be found
WNBA teams were collectively owned by the NBA until 2002. The league's owners were hit hard by the dot com crash, and then-Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen decided against buying the team. The Fire weren't able to find any other buyers, and are the only WNBA team to fold without having qualified for playoffs.
But that doesn't mean there isn't a rich basketball legacy for the new Fire to build on. In an interview with Oregon Live, Stiles recalled what it meant to be drafted into the WNBA and to play for the Fire before the team fell apart. Though Stiles was named Rookie of the Year and a WNBA All-Star, she then suffered a series of injuries in 2002 that kept her sidelined. When she was healthy and ready to return to the court, the team no longer existed.
“It was just crushing when you know, I finished my second season and all of a sudden, I’m at home in the off season and I get a phone call that the Portland Fire is no longer going to exist,” Stiles told the outlet. “And it was a grieving period because it’s like, OK, what do you do now? And it was really difficult not having that closure.”
She turned to other leagues, and spent a season playing with Lubbock Hawks of the National Women’s Basketball League. She then traveled to Australia, where she played for the Canberra Capitals. She transitioned to coaching, and is now part of the team who is tasked with promoting a brand new iteration of the Fire to Portlanders and beyond.
The Portland Fire are set to debut in 2026 — almost
The Fire have an ownership group in place and have even brought on former WNBA star Sylvia Fowles as an assistant coach. In fact, the team is more or less ready to go... except due to ongoing CBA negotiations between the WNBA and WNBPA, they haven't been able to hold an expansion draft, which would be the first step toward building a team roster.