Teamwork stems blaze before it can enter lumber mill structure in West TD this morning
Firefighters douse the blaze at Mid Columbia Forest Products this morning at 2100 W. 2nd St., The Dalles. The wood mill that supplies door and window manufacturers sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. However, a quick response from firefighters kept the facility mostly intact. Photo taken from Herminio Valdez video
By Tom Peterson
Assistant fire Chief David Jensen
A lightning-fast response by Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue and good teamwork with City of The Dalles Public Works and Police helped to curb a lumber mill fire this morning, June 23.
The fast work prevented the mill’s structure from becoming engulfed and will likely lead to the facility’s quick recovery, helping to maintain the employment of 15 locals.
Firefighters were called out to the blaze at Mid Columbia Forest Products at 2100 West 2nd St., The Dalles at 4:57 a.m. this morning on reports of lumber being on fire.
The mill is just west of the I-84 freeway entrance near Webber Street and a kitchen and restaurant supply store.
The fire had broken out on the west side of the building in lumber that had been milled and was ready for shipment. The company is a supplier of lumber for window and door manufacturers.
Mid Columbia Assistant Fire Chief David Jensen said crews were dispatched in 27 seconds and arrived on scene at 5:00.01 a.m.
That’s just 3 minutes.
“When I arrived the crews had already got a lot of water on the fires and everything was under white smoke,” he said. “They were able to stop the progress of the fire pretty quickly.”
“They kept it from getting inside the main structure,” he said. “They did a great job on that but there was a loss of materials and damage to the upper dust collection system.”
The fire remains under investigation, he said.
No one was injured.
The City of The Dalles Public Works was called in to assist with a loader, which was able to break up piles of burning wood so that the embers could be extinguished and moved away from the mill structure. The equipment operator worked for several hours in tandem with the firefighters.
Burned lumber from the mill was moved by Public Works using a loader, enabling firefighters to douse embers in minutes rather than hours.
The move greatly assisted in bringing the fire under control as fuels were removed that could potentially inflame the situation.
Firefighters used forklifts on-site and were able to remove pallets of lumber and place them out of harm’s way.
City Police assisted in blocking off the road as the fire hydrant was located across the street from the mill site.
A total of 13 firefighters, a mix of Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue and firefighters from Dallesport, were the immediate response to the blaze.
Forest Products owner Matt McCall said his hat was off to the City and Firefighters for their quick work. He also thanked Fire Chief Robert Palmer and Mike Luebke of Oregon Trail Insurance for his quick response and good advice on the matter.
The company employs 15, McCall said, and noted they would be paid for missed work thanks to the good insurance.
The high price of wood and the destruction of equipment will likely run the cost of the damage into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Jensen.
This trailer provided part of the dust collection system for the mill and will have to be replaced among other equipment, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
McCall said insurance adjusters would be out within a day to assess the loss. And he intended to get the vacuum system for particulate matter put back in operation as soon as possible to bring the mill back into production.
Flames continued to crop up at the mill this afternoon, June 23. This hotspot brought on by strong winds was quickly doused.
This afternoon, McCall and others watched over the mill site watching for hotspots as afternoon wind was baffling embers that would emerge under the puffy conditions. Firefighters were also checking back in the mill for the same reason.
The quick response from firefighters and the city was huge McCall said.
It was the difference between the mill getting quickly back into service or being shut down for a much longer period of time.
Jensen was proud of their team.
“For crews being up all night running calls, they really acted quickly,” he said, noting the mill fire was the 9th call, and crews had been out on medical calls, fire calls and one transport of a patient to Portland.
He said calls for service at MId-Columbia remain on an upward trend.
Calls for Service
Year & Calls
2020 - 2956 calls for service
2021 - 3522 calls for service
2022 - 1742 calls for service thus far - up 140 compared to this date in 2021.
