Fire reported at Vancouver malting company, site evacuated

Great Western Malting at the Port of Vancouver was temporarily evacuated Monday for a fire in a grain elevator.

The Vancouver Fire Department was called to the business, at 1705 N.W. Harborside Drive, shortly before noon after a dust-collecting filter in a grain elevator started smoking, fire department spokesman Darin Deming said.

Deming said firefighters arrived to find smoke coming from one of the company’s silos, where the dust and by-products made from moving and processing the grains is filtered. Some burning material made its way to the bottom of a silo, and a conveyor belt moved it to a dust collector bin where it continued to burn, Deming said.

Firefighters were able to get water on the filter and conveyor belts, but not in the dust collection bins. They’re sealed, Deming said, and firefighters didn’t want to rapidly introduce oxygen into the bins and risk explosive combustion, even to spray the smoldering material with water.

Thirty firefighters, along with help from Fire District 6, responded to the call, Deming said. On Monday afternoon, he said he wasn’t sure when the fire would be extinguished.

“We could be there for a couple hours or a couple days,” he said. “We’ve had fires like this before where we’ve been there for weeks, on and off, just monitoring it.”

Great Western Malting is a malt supplier for brewers, distillers and food processors.