A fire has destroyed a Wapato packhouse of Washington top-fruit grower and exporter Yakima Fruit and Cold Storage, causing millions of dollars worth of estimated damage.
Local firefighters received a call from an employee just before 7am on Thursday morning. The entire facility was on fire within minutes and the roof collapsed after about 20 minutes. The fire was so intense that State police shut down three lanes of highway 97 for three hours.
Fruit warehouses can be a significant fire hazard because of the use of ammonia in cold stores. "Obviously, talking large structures, talking about a lot of heat. You know we had a lot of ammonia issues earlier that got isolated," said Kevin Frazier, deputy fire chief of Yakima Fire District.
Yakima Fruit was able to shut off the lines running ammonia into the warehouse, minimizing the risk.