A serious fire has apparently devastated the Cachapoal packhouse of Rucaray, one of three apple facilities owned by the leading Chilean fresh fruit grower-exporter.
According to reports in the local press, the inferno has caused irrepairable damage to the company’s operations in the town of Coltauco in Chile’s Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins region.
More than 10,000m2 of buildings have been destroyed, one report claimed, including a coldstore, a store room and the facility's processing room.
Alberto Navajas, director of global projects at Rucaray, told Americafruit that the company has lost the newest coldstore chambers at its Cachapoal packhouse.
Rucaray’s owner Ramón Achurra told local media that 300,000 cartons of fruit – mainly apples and pears – had also perished in the fire, of which 50,000 were processed and ready for export.
Although the fire took charge just before 8am on Saturday 4 May, when more than 200 people were working at the facility, there have been no causualties, local media claimed.
“The losses are very high, but in the grand scale of things one has to take into account what is most important and that is that nothing happenend to any of the workers; there was not a single accident, and this is the most important for me because it was full of people when the fire started,” stated Achurra.
The cause of the fire is being investigated by the local authorities. One early report suggests it began with an ammonia leak which set alight highly combustible materials, including chlorine, gas and nitrogen, which are used at the processing site.
The blaze at Rucaray’s packing operations comes just one month after another serious fire in the region destroyed the warehouse facilities o fellow fruit supplier Geofrut, causing US$15m in losses.
Established in 1978, Rucaray produces a wide range of fresh fruit, primarily topfruit, stonefruit, kiwifruit and table grapes for export across the world.
