1 of 2 escaped Washington DOC inmates arrested at Portland 7-Eleven

GOLDENDALE, Wash. — Police in Portland arrested one of the two escaped Washington State Department of Corrections inmates on Wednesday morning.

A DOC officer discovered Tyray Munter and Maksim Petrovskiy disappeared on Tuesday after they worked a wildfire on Wednesday along the Washington-Oregon border.

Authorities arrested Munter, but Petrovskiy is still at large.The Department of Corrections is warning anyone who sees Petrovskiy to avoid approaching them. If you see him, contact the Olympic Corrections Center at 360-374-6181.

Who are the inmates? 

The 30-year-old Munter was convicted of second-degree assault and theft in Snohomish County in 2016 and sentenced to six years and three months. He was scheduled for release in May 2020.

Petrovskiy, 22, was serving a sentence for auto theft and possessing a stolen vehicle also in Snohomish County in April of this year. He was sentenced to two years and nine months, and scheduled for a December 2018 release.

How did they get to Portland, Oregon? 

As the search progressed, authorities announced that the pair was spotted in Portland on Tuesday evening.

One of the suspects were arrested around 6 a.m in east Portland at a 7-Eleven on Wednesday  morning after a resident called police.

Authorities have yet to release how the inmates made it  did not release how the inmates made it 115 miles.We'll update that section when information is provided by DOC.

Why were fighting fires? 

The two were part of an inmate crew fighting a fire 11 miles northeast of Goldendale in Klickitat County at 2 a.m. The state has been training and deploying crews of inmates since the 1950s.

It's common to see them, dressed in red, backing up firefighters on the fire lines.

What is unusual, according to Department of Natural Resources wildfire division manager Bob Johnson, is escapes by inmates fighting fires.

“I’m not going to say that there haven’t been times when we’ve had folks escape, but it is fairly rare,” Johnson said.

Johnson says the rest of the inmate crew will be sent back to prison and replaced, “ensuring that nothing else happens out there and we regain the trust of the community where those offenders have been.”

Cox Media Group