Fire guts Warden potato processing plant, prompts nighttime evacuation
The Washington Potato Company facility in Warden still smolders the next morning after a fire broke out in a potato dehydrator the afternoon of Jan. 21, prompting a response from fire departments across Grant and neighboring Adams counties.
Charles H. Featherstone
A Washington Potato Company facility in Warden burns Thursday.
Firefighters with Grant County Fire District No. 4 in Warden walk around the Washington Potato Co. facility Friday morning after spending the night fighting a blaze which broke out in a potato dehydrator Thursday afternoon.
The Washington Potato Co. facility in Warden still smolders the next morning and smoke fills the air after a fire broke out in a potato dehydrator the afternoon of Jan. 21, prompting a response from fire departments across Grant and neighboring Adams counties.
A fire truck with Grant County Fire District No. 5 leaves Warden on Friday morning after a night battling a blaze at the Washington Potato Co.'s Warden plant, which processed potatoes into dehydrated potato flakes. The facility, which was still burning Friday morning, was completely gutted, according to Grant County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Kyle Foreman.
A fire destroys Washington Potato Company in Warden.
WARDEN — A fire that started late Thursday afternoon completely gutted a major potato processing facility and prompted an evacuation of nearly a third of Warden residents for several hours, according to Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Kyle Foreman.
“It will probably burn for the next few days,” Foreman said Friday.
The fire at the Washington Potato Company facility, at 1900 W. First St., on the western side of Warden, was first reported at around 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Foreman said. It grew to engulf the entire potato dehydrating plant, eventually threatening a 5,000-gallon anhydrous ammonia tank and prompting the evacuation order around 8:30 p.m.
“Nobody was hurt,” Foreman said.
Fire crews from across the region — Grant County Fire District 4 in Warden, District 5 in Moses Lake, District 10 in Royal City, District 12 in Wilson Creek, District 13 in Ephrata, the Moses Lake Fire Department, Adams County Fire District 5 in Othello and the Ritzville Fire Department — responded to the blaze, Foreman said.
As of Friday morning around 9 a.m., the concrete-shell processing plant was still on fire, and fire crews from Grant County Fire District 4 were still at the scene. Since the building was made of concrete, Foreman said, it made it very difficult for fire crews to effectively fight the fire.
“Once the structure became part of the fire, it was very difficult to fight it any other way except from the air,” he said. “You cannot penetrate debris to the core of the fire.”
“It will have to burn itself out,” Foreman added.
At one point, the fire got close to a giant tank of ammonia, likely used for refrigeration, forcing firefighters to temporarily abandon their firefighting efforts and order an evacuation of all Warden residents west of U Street (known as South County Road within the Warden city limits) and south of State Route 170 (known as First Street).
“They saw the fire getting close and couldn’t pour enough water to keep it cool, so they pulled everyone back and evacuated about a third of the town,” Foreman said.
In addition to a text message sent on the county’s “reverse 911 system,” Foreman said police officers, state patrol officers and sheriff’s deputies went door-to-door advising residents to leave.
“We had to be evacuated,” said Pat Millard, executive director of the Port of Warden, who lives about 1.5 miles west of town. “A Grant County Sheriff officer came to our house about 9:30 and told us we needed to leave as the fire could cause the ammonia tank to explode.”
Millard said she and her family waited at the service station near the corner of SR-17 and SR-170 until about 1:30 a.m. Friday, when the sheriff’s office sent out a text saying it was safe to return home.
Foreman said the Red Cross was mobilized to provide temporary shelter, but only one person called looking for help.
“Most people went away from the area for a while and stayed with family and friends,” he said.
As of Friday morning, roads into Warden from the west — SR-170, Road S — were temporarily closed.
According to data from the Grant County Assessor’s Office, the facility is owned by Pasco-based Oregon Potato Company and had an assessed value of $13.3 million for 2021. In July 2020, the company received a building permit from the city of Warden for a mechanical gas line for a dehydrator.
As of Friday afternoon, Oregon Potato had not responded to requests for information.
According to Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington Potato Commission, the Warden plant is one of only two plants in the state that regularly process dehydrated potatoes. Potatoes are processed into dehydrated flakes used in soup mixes and instant mashed potatoes.
Many of the potatoes processed at the facility were “off-grade” potatoes that could not be sold as fresh or easily processed into french fries or potato chips, Voigt said. And much of the output of the plant was exported, primarily to Asia.
“It was home for potatoes that we normally can’t sell,” Voigt said. “Now we don’t have a home for the 50% of potatoes that are off grade.”
The only other facility that regularly produces dehydrated potatoes is Basic American Foods, located just south of Moses Lake along SR-17, Voigt said. Sometimes the Simplot facility in Moses Lake does as well, but only if it has excess potatoes, Voigt added.
“That’s why we’re really concerned. This will have impacts beyond Warden,” he said.
The fire hit at a difficult time for Columbia Basin potato growers, as demand for processed potato products in restaurants and other institutional settings has plummeted.
“We’re still in the midst of a pandemic,” Voigt said. “Demand just isn’t there, and that complicates matters.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
