GRANDVIEW -- What an employee's wife described as a "godsend" to this Lower Valley community's economy burned to the ground Tuesday morning, taking with it about 150 jobs and a major piece of the city's revenue.
Wild River Foods went up in flames when a short in an electrical panel sparked a fire that quickly consumed the building. The 45 to 50 workers on duty all got out safely, and there were no injuries to employees or firefighters. But with the plant declared a total loss, city officials are worried about the fire's impact on this small community.
"When I look over there, I see people who lost jobs and revenue that is lost to the city to pay for basic services," City Supervisor Scott Staples said. "It will make our budget challenges even harder."
Wild River Foods contributed $70,000 to the city's utility tax revenue and about 10 percent of revenues for the city water and sewer fund.
About 60 firefighters from 12 fire districts and fire departments across the Yakima Valley, as well as the Hanford Fire Department, converged around the plant to fight the blaze after it was reported about 9 a.m.
But firefighters had to wait until power to the masonry structure was cut off before they could attack the fire, said Battalion Chief Jim Martin of Selah, who acted as information officer for the multiple fire departments.
Firefighters used four ladder trucks to shoot water from above the flames. But the fire spread rapidly from the engine room where the spark began, and the roof collapsed within two hours.
Martin said the plant is a total loss. No damage estimate was available late Tuesday, but the loss will likely run into millions of dollars.
Incident commanders at the scene advised late Tuesday afternoon that Grandview residents smelling residual ammonia should not be alarmed. The ammonia does not pose a health hazard.
Black smoke, billowing like a funnel cloud, could be seen for miles, prompting some motorists on Interstate 82 to pull over so they could get a closer look.
Ross Wright, who works for DirecTV, was driving east on I-82 back to the Tri-Cities when he stopped to look at the fire. The 43-year-old ended up spending at least an hour in the parking lot at the corner of West Second Street and Grandridge Road, half a block from the burning building.
By 11 a.m., a couple dozen onlookers had gathered in the lot, too.
"I've never seen (a fire) that big," Wright said. "You can feel the heat. It's crazy."
Two and a half blocks down the street from the blaze, at ABC Preschool and Daycare Inc., co-owners Katherine Greene and Terri Dawes put their disaster plan into effect, placing a pink towel alongside the front door to help keep out smoke.
"We closed all the windows," Dawes said. "We're just holding the fort."
About 20 children -- ages 10 months to 9 years old -- were at the day care at 620 Grandridge Road when the fire started. One grandmother came and picked up three grandchildren, and a couple parents called to check on their kids.
By noontime, children were eating pizza for lunch and staying indoors. They also skipped swimming; the kids usually walk to the city pool.
"We're trying to keep them entertained," Dawes said, adding, "Everybody's safe."
Closer to the fire, police cordoned off one block of Second Street, which includes City Hall and the police and fire departments. Street access from Wine Country Road also was restricted for several hours.
Businesses in the area shut down for the day because of the heavy smoke and strong smell of ammonia released as the building burned. Some also were without power or water.
Martin said two vats of peanut oil stored in the building and used in processing potatoes was one cause of the thick black smoke.
Nearby buildings, including a recently constructed cold storage building just north of the plant, were not damaged.
The morning shift, comprised of about 45 to 50 people, began work at 7 a.m. and were working the assembly line at Wild River Foods when the fire began. The plant operates three shifts to process potatoes into french fries.
Caterino Macias, 42, oper-ates the bagging machine at the end of the line, and was in the plant when the fire began.
"I heard a noise ... then the alarms began going off and everybody ran out," Macias said.
Like many other Wild River Foods workers, Macias watched from about a block away, worried about what the fire would mean to his livelihood.
Dennis Huth worked at the plant as a mechanic and maintenance man for 40 years, starting right after high school. He was in an adjacent maintenance building when the fire alarms sounded.
Huth, 57, said he worked there through the progression of owners who operated the 49,000 square-foot processing plant. Each time the plant closed and operated under a new owner, Huth was there.
When the current owners reopened the plant about 18 months ago, Huth's wife, Linda, said it was a "godsend to Grandview."
"This will hit a lot of people," she said of the fire.
Without jobs to go to today, the Huths will face new challenges of their own. They just purchased a new home.
"Now he will look at never going through those doors again after 40 years," Linda Huth said of her husband.
Paul Sears lives across the street from the plant. He said he knows about 10 people who work there, including his neighbor. He likened watching the building burn to watching the local economy go up in flames.
"This is one of the few jobs (in Grandview) that pays over $10 an hour," the 69-year-old said.
Most longtime Grandview residents refer to the complex, at 206 Avenue A, as the Libby plant. In recent years, the plant was operated under leases by Sunheaven Farms of Prosser, Columbia Foods of Quincy, Willow Wind Organic Foods of Spokane and AgriFrozen. The most recent tenant before Wild River was Bybee Foods, a vegetable processor.
Peggy Brewer has worked at Kenyon Zero Storage for 23 years. Before that, though, she worked in the plant across the street for two or three years. Tuesday morning, she watched it burn.
"It's a great loss to our community, I'll tell you that," said Brewer, Kenyon's office manager. "It's a great loss."
"My mother worked in that plant years ago when it was Libby, McNeil and Libby," a canning factory, she said. "It was a part-time job for a lot of women, women raising families."
According to county property records, OB-2 LLC purchased the plant from Kenyon Zero Storage just four months ago for $3.8 million.
The plant reopened about 18 months ago as Wild River Foods.
"They were glad to be here," Staples said of the owners. "Grandview was glad to have them. We want to keep them. Our next challenge is to work with them. They are pretty shellshocked."
Representatives of the plant's owner, OB-2 LLC, based in Boise, Idaho, were at the scene of the blaze but declined to speak to reporters, leaving unclear whether the plant will be rebuilt.
The Wild River Foods fire is the second in Grandview in two days and the largest since a smoldering fire at a pesticide storage warehouse forced the evacuation of about 100 homes in 2005. A fire Sunday night at a Mexican food deli remains under investigation.
For now, Staples said, the City Council will have to consider cutbacks in the aftermath of the fire at the potato processing plant. The loss of utility taxes from Wild River Foods, on top of the failure of a referendum in May that sought to increase those taxes from 6 percent to 7.5 percent to maintain existing services, will require even deeper cuts.
"Now we are about the business of reducing or eliminating city services. This basically adds to that," Staples said.
In addition to Grandview's utility tax revenues, Tuesday's fire means a loss of $590,000 annually to the city's water and sewer fund.
Watch the video of the fire
* Reporter Adriana Janovich contributed to this report.
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