Burning chemicals force evacuations in Grandview

GRANDVIEW, Wash. – Contaminated smoke from a burning farm chemical storage building hung in the foggy air above this central Washington town on Wednesday, prompting authorities to evacuate nearby homes and businesses.

While more than 200 chemicals were stored at the multi-building Wilbur-Ellis Co. site, the insulated 40-by-80-foot building where the fire broke out was believed to contain about 30 chemicals, none considered at risk for explosion.

“But you’re mixing chemicals in a fire. Nothing is a certainty,” said Lt. Jim Keightley, State Patrol incident commander.

A half dozen people complained of skin irritation or respiratory distress and sought treatment at a nearby hospital, Keightley said.

Authorities evacuated a half mile area around the plant that included about 100 homes – roughly 400 people – after smoke filled the air with a strong sulfur odor described as similar to “burning rubber” or “rotten eggs,” he said.

The fire continued to smolder Wednesday night and authorities decided to let it burn itself out, rather than douse it with water that would increase the pollution hazard and cleanup problems, Keightley said. Low clouds and a lack of wind kept the smoke from dissipating.

A hazardous materials team entered the building and set up air monitors while the Environmental Protection Agency set up air monitoring equipment outside the complex — as far as five miles away.

Mayor Norm Childress said Grandview schools would be closed Thursday as a precaution.

A 13-mile stretch of Interstate 82 between Sunnyside and Prosser was closed early Wednesday afternoon and remained closed late into the night, Keightley said. Traffic was detoured around the closure.

Shelters were set up for the evacuees.

The Wilbur-Ellis site, which contains an office building and a 6,000-square-foot warehouse, stores agricultural chemicals and fertilizers, according to Ken Cowdrey, manager of the company’s safety, regulatory and environmental group in Yakima. About five people work there.

“The chemicals are an irritant and some of them are toxic,” Cowdrey said.

The primary health concerns were eye and respiratory irritation, said spokeswoman Joye Redfield-Wilder with the state Department of Ecology.

The chemicals ranged “from Roundup to fruit fly bait,” she said, adding the insulated building that burned was separated from the large warehouse by about eight feet.

The chemicals that burned did not include explosive chlorine, ammonium nitrate or anhydrous ammonia, Cowdrey said.

The warehouse is on the northwest outskirts of Grandview, a town of roughly 8,500 people about 40 miles southeast of Yakima.

San Francisco-based Wilbur-Ellis is an international marketer and distributor of agricultural and industrial products.