LONGVIEW, Wash. — Firefighters in Longview have continued to make progress knocking down the ongoing fire at a wood chip manufacturing plant, the fire department said Thursday morning, allowing them to scale back from eight fire vehicles at the site to just two, although a helicopter will also continue to dump water on the fire throughout the day.
Monitoring stations around Portland showed air quality back in the green on Thursday after being negatively impacted by smoke from the fire earlier in the week, but the fire department cautioned that there would continue to be smoke in the area around the fire depending on how wind conditions progress Thursday.
Fire officials previously reported Wednesday that the fire had been contained to one "very large chip pile" and that site owner Nippon Dynawave was making plans to assist by bringing in contractors to use heavy equipment to pull the chips apart to help reach and extinguish the deeper parts of the fire. Those efforts were going to begin on Thursday, according to the fire department.
Longview fire in Cowlitz County
The fire broke out Tuesday evening at the Dynawave lot in Longview, which is located in an industrial complex shared with the Weyerhaeser paper mill. Cowlitz Fire & Rescue and other neighboring agencies from Clark and Cowlitz counties also assisted in the initial response, and fire officials said they were able to keep the fire contained to the property on the first night. The main road through the area, Industrial Way, reopened to traffic on Wednesday, fire officials said.