PENDLETON — Fire erupted early Wednesday morning, Aug. 10, at Grain Craft flour mill in Pendleton. By midmorning, first responders were waiting for the possible collapse of the structure.

Pendleton Assistant Fire Chief Tony Pierotti said this blaze kicked off at about 4:30 a.m., and all signs point to the massive structure as a total loss.

Pendleton Fire Department, Umatilla Tribal Fire Department, Umatilla County Fire District No. 1 were the first to respond to the scene at 501 S.E. Emigrant Ave. Soon after, fire departments from La Grande and Boardman also were responding.

Pierotti said silos were at full capacity of finished grain, so the fire fuel load was extreme.

Fire may have burned through the night

Pendleton and other fire departments on Aug. 9 at 2:55 p.m. responded to the mill on a report of white smoke. Pierotti said a “rubber boot” that is part of the sifter may have caught fire. Crews had to get a hose up top to shoot water into a silo to put out the fire. Crews that day were at the mills for about six hours.

Grain Craft, the third largest flour miller in the United States, owns the mill and employs 22 people there. The company issued this statement:

“Early (Wednesday) morning a fire erupted at the Grain Craft flour mill in Pendleton, Oregon. There have been no injuries reported and our focus remains on the safety and well-being of our team members and the surrounding community. We are supporting all authorities as they contain the fire and mitigate the damage where possible. We are still working to understand the situation, however everyone is safe, and we will update when we have more information.”

Pierotti said chlorine tanks at the site were far enough away they were not an explosion risk. Still, fire crews doused the tanks with water as a precautionary measure. He also said nearby buildings were another concern.

“All these other buildings around are considered exposures,” he said. “Then we go defensive. It’s gonna come down, the goal is to make sure it doesn’t go anywhere else.”

A view from nearby

Arnold Wardwell owns AEW Welding and Custom Fabrication, 514 S.E. Emigrant Ave., inside Lapp’s Auto Body Repair across the avenue from Grain Craft’s elevator.

“This morning at about 6, I saw pictures of the flour mill on fire online,” Wardwell said. “I was watching when I left for work.”

Wardwell went to school with a farmer whom he helps out during harvest.

“My son runs the welding shop while I’m working harvest,” he said. “We had some equipment in the shop not covered by insurance, so we needed to get it out. Also a friend’s trailer.”

That was around 8:30 to 9 a.m.

“We got out before the whole perimeter was set up,” he said. “The fire department went up on the roof to put out embers. My son was there when the fire started yesterday afternoon, with white smoke, before it burst into flames early this morning.”

Wardwell said he hopes his son could get back to work Aug. 11

“We’ve got some projects that we need to get done soon,” he said.

Building integrity becomes the question

Buildings at the mill began to collapse around 9:30 a.m. Pierotti said there was a concern about a full building collapse.

“After roof collapse, the building is burning down from the interior, which works for us,” he said, “reduces threat to exposed buildings.”

He added firefighters think the full interior collapsed but could not confirm because no one has gone inside.

Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office brought in its search and rescue drone to look for hot spots and check the integrity of the building, as firefighters continued to pour water on the north side. Resources began pulling back around 9:45 a.m. and sending outside agencies back to their jurisdictions,

“They feel like it’s under control enough,” Pendleton Police Chief Chuck Byram said at the scene.

Pendleton Fire Lt. paramedic Jared Uselman was one of the people working with the drone. He said the whole building was a shell, and on the south side where there’s office spaces fires were burning. Pendleton fire was not sending in people because the risk of collapse was too high.

Fire could burn for days

Umatilla County closed the courthouse, 216 S.E. Fourth St., and the emergency prompted the closures of roads in a four-block radius around the mill. Umatilla County Commissioner John Shafer said the county opened the courthouse to rehab firefighters.

The Oregon Department of Human Services reported it closed its office in the state building at 800 S.E. Emigrant due to the fire. Staff were working remotely and attempting to contact and/or reschedule people with in-person appointments.

Pierotti said the fire could burn for days. The building was mostly heavy lumber, and even if it rained, it would not help much.

There was concern Tuesday and early Wednesday morning about the risk of an explosion from wheat dust, he also said.

A dust explosion and ensuing conflagration on July 21, 1947, on the second floor of what then was the Western Milling Company leveled the facility and caused fires that threatened a southeast Pendleton residential neighborhood and the county courthouse. Pierotti said that threat ebbed as Aug. 10 wore on.

But the collapse of the building was possible, so crews were keeping a zone clear in case the structure came down.

The rest of Aug. 10, he said, firefighters would focus on flare ups.

“We’ll be discussing options with the ownership tomorrow,” he said.

The roots of Pendleton Flour Mills reach back to 1910 as Fisher Flour. The company sold bagged flour in the Pacific Northwest. Over the years, Pendleton Flour Mills developed a strong distribution network that evolved to specialize in bulk shipments via trucks, rail and ocean containers.

The present structure on the railroad tracks in Pendleton was built in the 1920s.

The mills became known for its highly successful Power and Mondako brands, plus its dedication to providing personalized customer service and superior products. These included premium hard and soft wheat flour, and proprietary blends manufactured specifically to meet customers’ needs.

In the 1970s, Kerr Pacific Corp. bought Pendleton Flour Mills from General Foods Corp. Milner Milling Co. was formed in Georgia in the 1990s. In 2001, Milner formed a joint venture with the Pendleton operation, which also acquired Fisher Mills Inc. that year.

Grain Craft was established in May 2014, when Milner and its partner Pendleton Flour Mills acquired Cereal Food Processors Inc., of Mission Woods, Kansas. This brought together three of the most prominent independent milling companies in the country. The company was owned by G&L Holdings, a family holding company.

Grain Craft, the largest independent milling company in the U.S., on June 21, 2022, announced its parent company had entered into an agreement to have Redwood Capital Investment LLC acquire Grain Craft. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, bakingbusiness.com reported.

Based in Baltimore, Redwood Capital Investments is a holding company that has invested in long-standing, family-owned businesses across a range of industries. Grain Craft will continue to operate as an independent business following the transaction, the company said.