The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — More than 100 firefighters battled a massive fire Tuesday afternoon that destroyed a manufacturing building in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood and prompted a chemical-containment response.
The fire at Asko Processing, 434 N. 35th St., was reported shortly before 1 p.m. after workers saw smoke coming from machinery, Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore said. About a dozen people safely evacuated the one-story building as the first fire units arrived to find heavy smoke and flames.
Those units called for an increased response because of the heavy flames, Moore said. At the height of the fire, there were 30 firefighting rigs with more than 100 firefighters, according to Moore.
The fire was declared out at 3:15 p.m., but a few firefighters were to stay at the site overnight in case of hot spots, Moore said.
Investigators weren’t able to enter the building to determine the cause because of the hazardous materials inside and concerns about structural integrity.
“We do know that the damage is going to be several million dollars,” Moore said.
The fire left a stream of green runoff pouring out of the building toward a storm drain. While the green coloring is from a nontoxic dye, officials with the state Department of Ecology said the runoff contained other, potentially toxic compounds.
As a result, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) is taking pH samples downstream in catch basins and Asko has hired a national spill-response company, which will draw spilled material from storm drains.
SPU is assisting with helping coordinate the cleanup, said its environmental-compliance instructor, Eric Autry.
“We’re getting our heads wrapped around it, asking, ‘What is it that got away from this facility?’ ” Autry said.
Asko, a metal-finishing and -plating shop that employs about 100 people doing subcontract work for Boeing and Airbus, is one of the city’s largest generators of hazardous waste, the state Department of Ecology said.
The company works with cyanide baths and flammable solvents and thousands of pounds of acids, bases and toxic metals, from copper and cadmium to chromate.
Most of the hazardous waste is either treated on site or stored in protective material, the Department of Ecology said. The agency last inspected the facility in May 2013 and found only one minor violation.
Ecology spokesman Larry Altose said another large waste generator, Acu Line, a metal-etching business, is in the basement of Asko’s warehouse and produces ferric chloride as waste. That company has a permit to treat industrial waste on-site.
An inspection last year showed five violations, Altose said, but the state did not consider any major, and all were corrected.
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