EVERETT – A suspicious fire caused at least $500,000 in damage to a log yard early Tuesday, destroying a trailer and three pieces of heavy equipment, police said.
The blaze was reported at 1:39 a.m. in the 3600 block of Eclipse Mill Road, Everett police Sgt. Boyd Bryant said. The city-owned site is leased by Montesano-based Willis Enterprises.
Investigators on Tuesday did not describe the fire as an arson, but characterized it as “very suspicious,” Everett fire marshal Warren Burns said.
The three pieces of equipment and a trailer that burned were parked up to 30 yards away from each other, he said.
The flames, which reached two stories high, destroyed a wood chipper, a log loader, an earthmover and a trailer used as an office, Bryant said. The log yard manufactures wood chips used in paper products.
Nineteen firefighters worked for about two hours to extinguish the blaze, preventing it from spreading into the piles of logs and wood chips surrounding the equipment.
“We’re lucky it didn’t spread. That would have been an ugly fire to fight,” Burns said.
Investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are assisting Everett police and firefighters in investigating the blaze.
Evidence gathered at the scene is being tested at the ATF crime lab to help determine the cause and origin of the fire, Bryant said. The lab work is expected to take three to five days, he said.
The ATF is involved because its lab is better able to determine if the fire was deliberately set and the value of the property destroyed, authorities said.
Purchased new, the equipment and trailer are valued at about $1 million, Burns said.
The log yard, located in northeast Everett along the Snohomish River, was closed Tuesday as investigators examined the damage.
The flames, which could be seen from three blocks away, were reported by a passerby, Bryant said.
Willis Enterprises employees would not discuss the fire or the company’s Everett site.
Logging operations have been targeted in the past by radical environmental groups, but investigators have found no evidence that the log-yard fire was an act of eco-terrorism, ATF spokeswoman Juilianne Marshall said.
Reporter Katherine Schiffner: 425-339-3436 or schiffner@heraldnet.com.
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