US: Big WA apple producer hit hard by wildfires

As wildfires reached Chelan, Washington, a nearby fruit packing cooperative stood in ruins. It's one of dozens of businesses and homes destroyed.

The concrete walls of warehouse-sized packing sheds leaned, distorted from the heat of the fire. Damage to the cooperative Chelan Fruit is estimated at $50-$80 million. (Click here for a photo)

Some orchards had suffered fire damage, said Reggie Collins, CEO of Chelan Fruit. The losses included stacks of empty red bins, around 150,000 bins went up in flames, at $70 a piece. Something like 450,000 packed boxes of apples — around 1.8 million pounds — of last season’s and this season’s harvest ended up cooked. They will be taken to fields and mixed in as fertilizer.

The plant itself could hold fruit in “controlled storage,” allowing apples to be kept for up to a year.

The facility has 800 employees. Collins said they’d try and move them to other facilities the cooperative has. He also said he’s reaching out to other packing places — competitors, in some instances — for help in dealing with this season’s crop.

Source: Seattletimes