Firefighters Praising Local Business For Readiness During Tuesday Fire

The Wenatchee Valley Fire Department is singing the praises of a local fruit grower for the high level of preparedness it displayed during a fire at one of its packing facilities this morning.

Crews with Wenatchee Valley Fire Department were dispatched to the blaze at Stemilt Growers in the 2800 block of Euclid Avenue in Wenatchee at just before 8 a.m.

Fire Chief Brian Brett says the fire was located in a machine shop and had been contained by a sprinkler before crews arrived at the scene.

"When we showed up, Stemilt already had everybody evacuated from the packing shed and accounted for. They had their maintenance personnel showing us where the fire was located. It made our job so much easier to be able to show up to such a well-organized emergency scene so we can just go and directly engage in fire suppression."

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Brett says most of the businesses in the area are well-prepared in the event of a fire or other emergency.

"Our industries have good preparedness in general throughout the jurisdiction. When you hit a scale like Stemilt operates at with that many people and the complexities involved in evacuating people during an emergency, it's impressive. They practice it and it's apparent. And when there's a real emergency, it pays off, just like it did this morning."

Damage from the fire was extremely minimal and investigators are still working to determine the cause of the blaze.

No injuries were reported.