Longview Fire responded to a fire in the chip piles at Kapstone this afternoon around 1pm. Arriving crews found a slow-moving fire near the upper slopes of a 40 foot-tall pile of wood chips. Because of the high elevation of the flames and steep, unstable slopes of the chip piles, Longview Fire deployed a ladder truck with large master streams to fully extinguish the flames. Crews also found hot spots around a conveyor belt structure that was about 50' above the ground. After the fire was extinguished, the incident was turned over to Kapstone employees to continue clean-up of burned material and monitoring for additional hot spots.
At 10:33 PM Firefighters from Longview and Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue were dispatched to a reported fire in the 1000 block of Washington Way. At the time of dispatch only one fire apparatus was available to respond between the two departments… all others fire and medical units were committed to other emergencies. Fortunately, within minutes two additional companies were able to respond, and within ten minutes, three more apparatus responded.
When Longview Fire arrived they reported a fully involved commercial building with multiple cars also burning. The fire was located at Triangle Motors, 1030 Washington Way. They specialize in the sale of used vehicles, and have two buildings on-site, an office, and a repair garage.
Because of the extensive fire conditions crews attacked the fire with large diameter hand lines, a deck gun, and twin nozzles off the ladder trucks extended aerial platform. During the fire-fight there were several explosions, most occurring from vehicle tires, however, a fuel tank also failed, and causing gasoline to spill under the vehicle and instantly ignite.
The fire was declared under control after 90 minutes, and crew performed extensive overhaul, due to the content load in the repair garage. At the time of the fire there were approximate 30 vehicles and one boat on the lot, and at least ten vehicles and the boat were destroyed from the fire.
The owner of Triangle Motors was on-site at the time of the fire and told investigators he was in the repair garage when he saw the office heavily involved with fire. He was able to escape before the fire spread to the repair garage.
Both building suffered extensive damage and are considered a total loss, as well as multiple vehicles. The two neighboring business, Domino’s Pizza and Muchas Gracias, were not damaged by the fire, however, Domino’s was evacuated during the initial phases of the fire.
The fire is under investigation. At this time there are no damage estimates. There were no injuries reported and fire crews are performing fire watch throughout the night.
Scene videos on Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/an465s75cza2c9d/AAAY16HAjPfboJW74eEC5ZLra?dl=0
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