Mid Columbia Forest Products back on line after fire

Employees were hard at it today, July 19, at Mid Columbia Forest Products at 2100 West Second Street, The Dalles. The Mill came back on line July 11 after a fire on June 23 brought it to a standstill.

By Tom Peterson 

Employees at Mid Columbia Forest Products have been back to work since July 11 after a fire shut the mill down on West Second Street on June 23. 

“We were down 12 (business) days,” said Owner Matt McCall today, July 19. “The vacuum system is up and going, but it still needs a few modifications.”

McCall said a woman had been arrested in connection with the fire but had skipped town on a train. CCCNews has reached out to The Dalles Police Department to get additional information in regard to the arrest. 

“We lost some orders and the market is a little off too,” he said. “We’re working four days a week.”

McCall also said the fire provided a welcome pause as the company had been “going hard” for the past 2 ½ years.

 On June 23, firefighters were called out to the blaze at Mid Columbia Forest Products at 2100 West 2nd St., The Dalles at 4:57 a.m. on reports of lumber being on fire. 

The mill is just west of the I-84 freeway entrance near Webber Street and a kitchen and restaurant supply store. The fire had broken out on the west side of the building in lumber that had been milled and was ready for shipment. The company is a supplier of lumber for window and door manufacturers.

Mid Columbia Assistant Fire Chief David Jensen said crews were dispatched in 27 seconds and arrived on the scene at 5 a.m.

That’s just 3 minutes.

“They kept it from getting inside the main structure,” he said. “They did a great job on that but there was a loss of materials and damage to the upper dust collection system.”

The fire remains under investigation, he said.

No one was injured. 

The City of The Dalles Public Works was called in to assist with a loader, which was able to break up piles of burning wood so that the embers could be extinguished and moved away from the mill structure. The equipment operator worked for several hours in tandem with the firefighters. 

The move greatly assisted in bringing the fire under control as fuels were removed that could potentially inflame the situation. 

Firefighters used forklifts on-site and were able to remove pallets of lumber and place them out of harm’s way.

Mid Columbia Forest Products employs 15, McCall said, and said they were paid for missed work thanks to good insurance. 

The high price of wood and the destruction of equipment will likely run the cost of the damage into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Jensen.