Plum Creek plant could be 100 percent by Friday

Plum Creek Timber Company’s medium-density fiberboard production plant could be running at 100 percent by week’s end, said Tom Ray, Plum Creek’s vice president of northwest resources and management.

A fire on June 10 shut down the plant, but the company said it would be back up and running within a month. The company’s thinboard line was back up and running on June 30, but line one, which produces a thicker MDF panel, was experiencing electrical issues.

The company has slowly been testing the electrical systems and motors on line one, but when a 250 horsepower motor came up to full load Tuesday, it shorted out. Another motor was being brought in via truck overnight to replace it.

Ray said the hope was that line one would be up and running completely by Friday, July 11.

Two explosions rocked part of the MDF plant June 10 after a bearing in a conveyor belt failed, overheated and ignited wood fibers. No one was injured in the blast and fire, but more than 70 firefighters battled the blaze.

The plant had multiple fires, but neither one of the MDF lines were damaged by the flames. The problem was water — fire suppression systems soaked portions of the plant with about 1.5 million gallons of water. Crews had to pump out about eight feet of water alone from underneath the thinboard line.

Employees have been working 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 12-hour shifts to get things dried and out and back up and running, Ray said. That included replacing more than 200 sprinklers on each line.

The plant employs a little more than 180 workers and is worth an estimated value of at least  $200 million.

The fire also did not destroy most of the inventory under the roof of the 7-acre plant.

Ray said even once the lines are up and running, there will still be necessary repairs to the sheet metal on the buildings that were damaged in the blasts.