Fire at Washington seafood facility destroys hundreds of crab pots before season opener

ILWACO, Wash. — A fire at a coastal dock building in Washington state destroyed more than a thousand crab pots just before the state’s commercial Dungeness crab season, which opens Feb. 1.

The fire started around noon Monday at the Port of Ilwaco, near the mouth of the Columbia River and north of Astoria, Oregon, KING-TV reported.

The remote area of ​​the fire made it difficult to get an adequate water supply to fight the blaze, the Ilwaco Fire Department said in a statement Tuesday. About 8,500 crab pots on the deck surrounding the building made fighting the fire even more difficult, officials said. No injuries have been reported.

“This town, Ilwaco, is a fishing community,” Natasha Beals told KING-TV. “Crab fishing, fishing, every family – almost every family – is affected here.”

Ilwaco Landing, the building on the site, has been used for commercial crabbing and fishing, although it has not been at full occupancy in recent years.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington said in a statement Monday evening that the building had suffered “significant damage” and that she was closely monitoring the situation.

Heather Hall of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife said the agency would do whatever it could to help crabbers who had lost their gear.

The Washington Department of Ecology on Tuesday helped mitigate any environmental problems caused by fire debris in the Columbia River.

The Dungeness crab harvest is Washington’s most valuable commercial fishery.