Fire destroyed a Warden, Washington, potato processing plant Thursday night and prompted the evacuation of a third of the town.
The blaze was reported in the dehydrator at the Washington Potato Co. plant at 5:30 p.m., said Kyle Foreman, public information officer for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office in Washington.
A representative of the parent company, Oregon Potato Co., in Pasco, Washington, declined to comment.
No injuries or deaths were reported, Foreman said.
“Right now, the assessment from command is it’s a 100% loss,” he said.
Firefighters discovered the fire had spread from the dehydrator to other parts of the building and its structure, Foreman said. They summoned more resources from throughout Grant and Adams counties.
At 8:30 p.m., there were concerns that a large anhydrous ammonia tank at the facility could explode. Officials ordered firefighters to pull back from the blaze, and a third of the town of 2,800, was evacuated, Foreman said.
Sheriff’s deputies and Warden police officers went door-to-door to notify residents and posted the evacuation on social media.
Concerns about a potential explosion subsided, and residents were allowed to return to their homes about 1:30 a.m. Friday, Foreman said. No further evacuations are anticipated.
Firefighters remained at the scene all night, pouring water onto the fire.
“People in the Warden area will probably see smoke coming from the fire until the fire extinguishes itself,” Foreman said.
Foreman said the cause of the fire is under investigation.
“It appears it was accidental,” Foreman said.
The plant primarily makes instant mashed potatoes and dehydrated scalloped potatoes for foodservice, said Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington Potato Commission.
”We’re just thankful nobody got hurt,” Voigt said. “We’re hoping they’ll be able to be rebuild and put in its place a new state-of-the-art potato dehydration plant.”
Loss of the plant will be a “huge” impact to Warden, and to the industry, Voigt said.
The industry sends its “off-grade” potatoes to the plant. The potatoes are still perfectly good and nutritious but have cosmetic defects or are too small or too large.
Overall demand for potato products has been down, Voigt said. Dehydrated potatoes have fared better than most other products because they are shelf-stable.
”Losing that, we don’t have a market for a lot of those off-grade potatoes,” Voigt said of the plant.
A similar plant in Moses Lake, Washington, is one option. Use in hash brown patties or tater tots is another, but Voigt isn’t certain whether frozen potato processing companies can absorb the extra potatoes with the loss of the Warden plant.
Voigt did not have an estimate of the volume of potatoes the Warden plant processed.
Foreman said loss of the plant will hurt the town.
”Certainly when you lose an employer in a small town like Warden, it’s going to have an economic impact on the citizens and businesses,” he said. “Assisting and praying for Warden in their recovery is going to be paramount. We ask everyone to do that.”
January 23, 2021 at 12:30AM
https://ift.tt/2LNFyob
Fire destroys E. Washington potato processing plant | State | bendbulletin.com - Bend Bulletin
https://ift.tt/2rh4zOj
Potato
No comments:
Post a Comment