Vancouver firefighters were busy early Saturday morning at Great Western Malting due to two separate fire calls.
The first call to 911 came in at 3:15 a.m. at the malt plant at 1855 N.W. Harborside Drive on the city’s industrial west side. Somewhere in the malting process — after the product had gone through the baking process and then entered the cooling process — the material did not cool down enough and ignited, Vancouver Fire Department Capt. Joe Spatz said.
Firefighters hosed down the fire in a cooling bin, which was about the size of a dumpster, and extinguished the material. They remained on scene for about two hours.
Firefighters returned later because some of the material had gone up a flue and reignited, causing a fire in a filtering system. Firefighters quickly extinguished that fire.
