Alaska.com: Alaska's Travel Website

Fish processing plant goes up in flames

Firefighters not equipped for blaze; 3 workers injured

By JAMES HALPIN
jhalpin@adn.com

Published: July 22nd, 2008
Last Modified: July 22nd, 2008 at 12:30 AM

A massive, fast-moving fire tore through a Chignik Bay fish processing plant Monday, destroying the plant and leaving several employees with injuries from smoke inhalation, according to Trident Seafoods Corp. and local officials.

Crews from the plant and a local construction company, along with village firefighters, began battling the blaze when it broke out sometime around 1:30 p.m. Monday, but the fire quickly raced out of control, forcing emergency responders to evacuate and let the structure burn because of fears nearby ammonia tanks might explode in the heat, said tribal administrator Debbie Carlson.

By about 7:30 p.m., Trident officials said it was clear the facility would be a total loss. It was still burning at 9:30 p.m., according to Alaska State Troopers.

"It certainly shuts down operations for this year," said Joe Plesha, the company's chief legal officer. "We're going to send everyone home."

Three employees were first taken to the clinic to be treated for smoke inhalation and were being flown to Anchorage Monday night, Plesha said. A condition report on the patients was not immediately available.

The fire broke out in a power house that was attached to the main canning facility, Plesha said, though its cause was not known Monday.

About 250 workers were evacuated from the cannery after the fire broke out, he said. Seattle-based Trident owns two plants in the same area: the older NorQuest facility and the newer Chignik Pride Fisheries facility, which is the one that burned. The older facility, which is not in working order, would likely house the workers until they could all be flown out -- a process that could last four or five days, Plesha said.

He asked friends and relatives of plant workers to call 206-783-3818 to find out the flight schedules of departing employees.

The village of Chignik Bay has a permanent population of about 80 and is on the south shore of the Alaska Peninsula, about 450 miles southwest of Anchorage. It is equipped with fire hydrants and a truck that has a 500-gallon water capacity -- not enough to handle such a massive fire, Carlson said.

"It's going to be a total disaster," Carlson said at about 6:30 p.m. "The whole cannery is engulfed right now. We don't have the equipment to fight such a big fire."

At the fire's height, flames shot as high as 100 feet in the air, though wind was fanning the flames and pushing smoke away from town, preventing the blaze from spreading to structures beyond the facility, Carlson said.

At the time, the fire had not breached an adjacent bunkhouse and mess hall used by the cannery workers, though it appeared poised to, she said. It was unclear late Monday if that structure was lost.

The U.S. Coast Guard had an MH-60 helicopter en route to the scene Monday evening to examine the scene and get an investigator in the area to check for pollution in the water, said Lt. John Backus. The Coast Guard would assist with transport with medical emergencies if needed, he said.

"We haven't been asked to assist as far as the medical evacuations are concerned," he said. "The helo is really just going to provide us with eyes on the scene."

At this time of year, the Chignik fishery is almost exclusively focused on sockeye salmon and the plant cans and processes the frozen fish, Plesha said. There are 100 state permits issued to seiners in the fishery.

Plesha said Trident was sending a floating processor as well as some tenders to temporarily handle the fish. The processor was expected to arrive sometime in the next two days, he said. The tenders would be used to haul the fish to processing stations in Sand Point and possibly Kodiak while the company decided what would come next, he said. It was too soon to say whether it would rebuild the plant.

A state fire marshal and an Alaska State Trooper will fly to the village to investigate.