Feds called in to help investigate cause of largest building fire in Tri-Cities history

What may be the largest structure fire in Tri-Cities history is continuing to burn 10 days after it started, sending toxic smoke from burning plastic and other materials drifting over nearby homes.

Fire officials still don’t know what sparked the destructive blaze at Lineage Logistics’ Kennewick cold storage warehouse , but Benton Fire District 1 has asked for help from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The fire district has no reason to suspect the cause of the fire was suspicious, but needs the additional resources of the federal agency to determine the cause, Jenna Kochenauer, the Benton County Fire District 1 public information officer, told the Herald on Wednesday.

The mostly volunteer rural fire department has limited staff, and the federal agency has better equipment to get into the partially collapsed building that covers nearly 12 acres.

The federal agency is starting by interviewing firefighters first at the scene and the 10 Lineage workers at the warehouse when the fire started about 5:15 a.m. on Sunday, April 21.

Lonnie Click, the retiring fire chief for Benton Fire District 1, said the older section of the cold storage warehouse is now a pile of smoldering vegetables and packaging.

That half of the building was storing large boxes of potatoes cut into small pieces. He estimated the cardboard boxes that held them were about four-feet square with a thin liner. They were stacked on wooden pallets.

The walls of the newer section of the cold storage facility that were made of noncombustible materials remain standing. But fire spread across the roof of the entire structure, destroying it.

The newer section of the plant held smaller containers of vegetables ready to ship, including more potatoes, corn, peas and carrots.

Click said the fire at 224905 E. Bowles Road in Finley was possibly the largest structure fire ever in Tri-Cities, destroying a significant amount of food.

Crews have been spraying water on the building from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and keeping a fire watch overnight.

Over nearly eight days, a little over 1 million gallons of water were sprayed on the pile of vegetables and packing materials, Click said.

There are no fire hydrants in the area and fire district crews had been pumping water out of a nearby Columbia Irrigation District canal .

However, the canal ran dry this week after the irrigation district had to shut down miles of the waterway to investigate a possible breach near Columbia Park Trail and Highway 240.

Water shortage for Finley fire

Benton Fire District 1 was forced to suspend its daytime dousing of the fire, because trucking in the large quantity of water was no longer practical.

The fire district feared that the canal might be dry for more than a week. But the irrigation district resolved the issue quickly and water is expected to be flowing again by 8 a.m. Thursday, Click said.

Helicopters and airplanes are not being used to drop water on the fire, in part to preserve as much as possible the area where the fire started, Benton Fire District 1 posted on social media.

In addition, the fire now does not meet the usual requirements for bringing in aerial resources, it said.

Smoke is continuing to bother nearby residents, although air quality at stations in Kennewick and Burbank has been rated as “good” after being rated as “moderate” for several hours on Saturday.

For people who are in the path of the smoke from the fire, the Benton Fire District 1 cautions that plastic continues to burn.

“All smoke is toxic, but you want to avoid breathing smoke from plastics,” it posted on social media. “There are also building materials, cardboard and produce burning.”

People in the path of the fire should take the same precautions as when wildfire smoke inundates the Tri-Cities area — keep doors and windows closed, change out home air filters as needed and consider wearing N95 masks.

The Washington state Department of Ecology has installed air monitors to check for anhydrous ammonia.

About 14,000 pounds of ammonia, which was used as a refrigerant at the frozen vegetable warehouse, was lost in the fire, the Washington Department of Ecology previously told the Herald.

There have been no alerts issued based on the monitoring.

Ammonia is caustic and hazardous when released in large volumes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that it is difficult to ignite and that its smell tends to drive people away before concentration levels become dangerous.

The Department of Ecology also will be monitoring dry wells on the Lineage Logistics property that have captured some of the runoff water.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers monitored outflow into the Columbia River for 72 hours after the fire and has not reported detecting any concerns to the Department of Ecology.

Cause of the fire

Local fire officials initially believe the fire started in a freezer.

Firefighters spent several hours going through the freezer, which was lined with large racks loaded with plastic pallets of vegetables.

The search for where the fire started was difficult because of the mist inside the freezer which was exacerbated by the fire suppression efforts and the density of stacked pallets, Kochenauer said previously.

The sprinkler system initially was able to contain the fire for a while, but couldn’t snuff it out because it was blocked by shelving and stacks of pallets, she said.

“We could see the fire was creeping up to the ceiling, so they tried access the fire from the roof,” she said.

After cutting a hole in the roof and pouring more water on it, the wind kicked up and fanned the flames. Firefighters were then forced to retreat to safety and the fire flared and spread.

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