Firefighters Continue Fighting Collins Fruit Warehouse Fire in Monitor
Chelan County Fire District #6 firefighters are on standby as they continue fighting the Collins Fruit Warehouse Fire in Monitor Friday.
On Thursday morning, the roof of the Collins Fruit warehouse collapsed due to a structure fire inside the building, with Monitor residents being asked to shelter in place as crews worked on the fire.
The warehouse was being used to store both recreational and medical marijuana.
Chelan County Fire District 6 Chief Phil Mosher said they currently do not have an estimation for when the fire will be fully extinguished.
“The fire is in most of the interior walls, first floor [and] second floor are all in the basement of the building, so we've got just a big fire pit,” Moser said. “Basically because we can't really get to the seed of all of that fire in the basement with water.”
Moser said crews are no longer pouring water on the fire and are now letting it burn out.
“It's going to be doing that probably for the next week, I would imagine,” Moser said “We're going to have smoke in the valley for that length of time, maybe longer, just depending on how quick it gets done. There's some fairly large timbers in there that will probably take a while to consume.”
Main Street in Monitor will remain closed until the north wall of the building no longer presents a threat to incoming traffic.
Moser said crews will be tearing down the north wall between Friday night and Saturday afternoon, and will reopen Main Street after that is done.
Cause of the fire is currently being investigated and is unknown at this time.