EVERETT – A fire that caused more than $2 million in damage to the Grifols Biomat USA Plasma Center in Everett was still smoldering Monday as investigators got their first look inside the building.
Thousands of gallons of water in the basement and piles of hot debris complicated efforts by local and federal investigators to pinpoint a cause for Sunday’s blaze.
“We have to get everything out first before we can determine how this fire started,” Everett Fire Marshal Warren Burns said. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”
Michael V. Martina / The Herald
Figuring out how the fire started could take as long as a week, he said. Crews remained at the site overnight to watch for flare-ups.
Firefighters suspect the blaze started in the basement. They hope to start examining the area today, after crews clear out the collapsed roof.
Hazardous materials experts will inspect the site in the 2800 block of Hoyt Avenue first, looking for needles, blood or other biohazards.
Everett investigators and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are treating the fire as suspicious until they know the cause, Everett police Sgt. Boyd Bryant said.
The ATF joined the investigation because of the size of the fire and extent of the damage, Burns said. “They’re just an extra set of eyes,” he said.
The fire destroyed the building along with 2,250 one-liter units of plasma valued at $1 million, said Debbie Cornell, a facility manager trainee for Grifols USA’s Everett site. Plasma is blood from which the red-blood cells have been removed and returned to the donor.
“We had a record-breaking week last week,” she said. “We were going to ship out a huge amount” Monday.
The flames also consumed more than $1 million worth of equipment at the donation center, including 35 machines used to collect plasma. Those are valued at $30,000 each, she said.
“It’s an extreme loss,” Cornell said. “I saw it, but I still don’t believe it.”
The site collected plasma from about 750 people per week, paying $20 to $25 per donation. A sign there directed donors to the company’s north Seattle location.
“We have some donors who’ve donated for 10 to 20 years,” Cornell said. “There’s a lot of students who donate, people with young kids trying to get some extra gas or food money.”
The site was one of the company’s top plasma collection locations, ranking eighth in the country this month out of Biomat’s 48 locations, said Eric Segal, a spokesman for Grifols USA.
The company is looking for a new site, but could face hurdles if it wants to relocate in downtown Everett.
The Everett City Council in November began requiring a special permit for new blood plasma centers, food banks, tattoo parlors and several other types of businesses. The restriction will last at least six months, while the city studies whether to make it permanent.
Existing businesses are grandfathered in, so if Biomat wants to reopen at Hoyt and California, if would not need a special permit, city planning director Allan Giffen said. A temporary location at another downtown site would require a permit, though, he said.
The company could open a plasma center in other parts of the city without special permission, as long as it met zoning regulations, he said.
“We weren’t looking for other sites in the area, so we didn’t know about that at all. It comes as a complete shock,” Segal said. “The best of all worlds is that the landlord would rebuild the facility, and we’d move back in there.”
The building, constructed in 1909, is owned by Bill Rucker, who also owns H&L Sports a block away.
The basement was used as a 6,000-square-foot warehouse used to store soccer equipment for a related business, Soccer West, which has four stores in Western Washington.
The inventory included some high school soccer uniforms that will be difficult to replace, said Mike Rucker, president of Soccer West.
He did not know yet whether they’ll reconstruct the building, which formerly served as the city’s federal building and post office.
“We’ve got to talk to the insurance company and find out what the options are,” Mike Rucker said.
Firefighters from seven departments battled the blaze for more than eight hours Sunday. Downtown businesses donated food for them as they fought the flames.
No one was injured in the fire.
On Monday, business owners near the plasma center mopped up gallons of water on their floors.
At Creative Printing Service next door, the water ruined print jobs for the Everett School District and Center for Battered Women, owner Kate Dunham said.
Friend Jerry Wynne at Alexander Printing in Everett reprinted the jobs for her. She hopes to open again in a week.
“Water and paper don’t mix very well,” she said. “(But) they did a wonderful job saving this building.”
Herald reporters David Olson and Eric Fetters contributed to this story.
Reporter Katherine Schiffner: 425-339-3436 or schiffner@heraldnet.com.
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