Saginaw blaze latest in long line of local mill fires

Jun 21, 2023

Two years ago, a forklift at the Whitsell Manufacturing wood products mill in Saginaw caught fire, threatening to ignite wood dust and other combustibles at the Highway 99 factory north of Cottage Grove.

But the old 190,000-square-foot facility's sprinkler system quickly kicked in, putting out the flames, South Lane County Fire & Rescue Chief John Wooten recalled.

"It pumped a lot of water," Wooten said.

Last month, the facility's owner was not so lucky. On May 27, when a fire of still-unknown origin broke out at the half-century-old plant, the sprinkler system wasn't up to the task of suppression. Within a half-hour, the massive, all-wood facility was reduced to a blazing heap.

"This is one of the questions we have, why the (sprinkler) system was overwhelmed this time," Wooten said.

The plant isn't connected to a municipal water system. Rather, it draws water from the adjacent Coast Fork of the Willamette River. By the time firefighters arrived within a few minutes of the first 911 call, the water system wasn't working, Wooten said.

The flames quickly created an inferno.

"There were open doors that the wind was feeding directly into, and then once the fire built to a point where it kind of preheated the inside of the building, we think the sawdust particulate (inside) may have ignited rapidly and caused a flashover," he said. In a flashover, the energy of the fire is radiated back from the walls, floor and ceiling onto the contents of a room, causing everything that's combustible to burst into flames at much the same time.

Fires are common at the wood products industry's stock of aged mills in Lane County and around the state. That's no surprise, given that the facilities typically are built of wood, are thick with sawdust and wood waste, likely have piles of wood inside and out, and contain machinery that often runs very hot. Most of the blazes are quickly suppressed and cause only minor damage. Some rapidly spin out of control.

During the past 10 years, eight major fires have destroyed or damaged wood products facilities in and around Eugene-Springfield.

No one was hurt in the Whitsell blaze. Owner Walter Whitsell has vowed to rebuild. If so, he'll have to meet tougher codes than those in place when the facility was built decades ago by previous owners.

Wooten said new wood products mills these days typically are built of steel, making them far more resistant to fire.

Springfield Swanson blaze was huge

For years, the Swanson veneer and plywood in Springfield was one of the county's largest wood products facilities. Then, on July 17, 2014, a massive fire gutted the old 210,000-square-foot wooden bow-truss structure and ignited adjacent stacks of wood products.

Swanson rebuilt and opened the mill in 2016. CEO Steve Swanson said the new mill is all steel, lined with steel sheathing inside and out. The sheathing minimizes exposed horizontal areas in the framework where sawdust can accumulate, he said. Any exposed horizontal beam more than 4 inches wide has 45-degree-angled sheet metal on it that causes sawdust and other wood particles to slide off, Swanson said. Accumulation of sawdust and other wood particles in a mill is a huge risk for fire and explosions, he stressed.

No one has determined the cause of the Swanson fire. But, as at the Whitsell fire, the sprinkler system proved ineffective. The former Swanson mill had only a single connection to the municipal water supply. Once collapsing roof timbers broke the overhead sprinkler lines, water pressure to the property dropped drastically, cutting the availability of water to fight the fire, investigators have said.

Swanson's new water system has multiple connections, making such a failure less likely, Swanson said.

Wooten said Whitsell's sprinkler system wasn't working by the time firefighters arrived at the plant, at East Saginaw Road and Highway 99. Over two days, crews hauled in by truck more than 300,000 gallons of water to dump on the blaze, he said.

Wooten said mills vary in their attention to dust suppression and other maintenance.

"It really falls on the operators of the mills. Some mills you go in and they are really super clean, but any sawmill is going to have a lot of sawdust," he said. Older mills typically don't have vacuum or other systems that collect sawdust, he said.

Big mill fires are rare in South Lane's jurisdiction, Wooten said. Every few years a small fire may break out at the Weyerhaeuser Co. sawmill in Cottage Grove, he said, but the company quickly puts it out. Weyerhaeuser is "very, very active with their fire suppression," he said.

Plywood mills, with hot dryers, are particularly prone to fires, he said. The Swanson fire was traced to one of the factory's three veneer dryers, authorities have said.

Seneca upgraded fire suppression system at Noti mill

Terry Ney, chief of the Lane Fire Authority, which covers parts of western Lane County, agreed that sprinkler systems at old mills can be quickly overwhelmed by fire, given that they typically rely on their own private water systems and there usually are large loads of flammable materials on site.

But good mill operators can spend heavily on fire prevention, partly in order to get good insurance coverage, he said. When Eugene's Seneca several years ago bought a wood products mill in Noti in western Lane County, Seneca "came in and completely overhauled the fire suppression system and the water supply for the mill," he said. "It was their choice to do this. They invested a lot of money in the mill, including in the fire suppression system."

Ney's agency was among those that fought a fire in a warehouse and big log piles last summer at the Wood Recovery mill south of Junction City. There was no municipal water supply on the property. Most of the water to fight the blaze was brought in by water tankers, he said.

Swanson said he's acutely aware that wood products mills contain a potentially hazardous mix of elements.

The old Swanson factory in Springfield had many wide, exposed wood beams where sawdust could accumulate, he said.

Swanson tried to cut down on sawdust, he said. "We had just done a complete blowdown of that mill three weeks before" the fire, to clean away dust, he said.

Plywood veneer is dried in the mill, so the stacks of products have very little moisture content — 7 percent or less — making them susceptible to burning, Swanson said. And the dryer machines heat up to 300 degrees or more, he said.

Swanson has three other mills in Oregon — two mainly made of metal, and one older one, in Glendale, made of wood and built in the 1950s.

"Every time you have a wooden building, and having survived a fire, you certainly are concerned," he said. "We're doing everything possible to eliminate the hazards."

Fire hazard

Fires large and small are common at area wood products mills. Here's a sampling:

May 27, 2018: Whitsell Manufacturing, Saginaw. Mill totaling 190,000 square feet destroyed. Cause under investigation. Arson not suspected.

Oct. 22, 2017: Creswell Forest Products/Fore Lumber, Creswell. Arson fire set by several youths damages buildings, equipment.

Aug. 13, 2017: Wood Recovery, Junction City. Piles of logs and warehouse burned. Cause of fire uncertain.

July 17, 2014: Swanson Group plywood and veneer mill, Springfield. Fire destroyed 210,000-square-foot facility and adjacent piles of wood products. Started in veneer dryer. Cause undetermined.

March 2011: Natron Wood Products mill, Jasper. Part of facility destroyed by fire.

February 2010: Emerald Forest Products, west Eugene. Facility heavily damaged by blaze that also destroyed stocks of lumber and plywood veneer.

June 2010: Bald Knob mill, Creswell. Arson fire destroys building at shuttered mill site.

May 2008: Bald Knob mill, Creswell. Fire caused by hot equipment igniting sawdust burns down much of plant, prompts its permanent closure.