Some longtime Harborites may well recall where they were a half-century ago when, on the warm afternoon of July 1, 1967, Aberdeen experienced a spectacular blaze that could have been catastrophic if not for the actions of five local fire departments — and a young girl.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic filed through Aberdeen as tourists headed to the beaches for the sunny holiday weekend. Before it became the fast-food strip it is today, East Wishkah Street 50-years ago was a mix of two-story homes, taverns, diners and light industry. One of those industries (on the present-day site of McDonald’s restaurant/Papa’s Murphy’s building) was the Petrolane-Blue Flame Gas Company housed in a half-block long wood-frame warehouse building they shared with the Grays Harbor Cedar Tile Company. Behind it was the gas farm where liquid propane tanks were filled. It was just before 3:30 that muggy afternoon — temperatures were in the 80s — when off-duty Aberdeen firefighter Chuck Tierney glanced out a window at Jack’s Drive-In and spotted flames at the Petrolane yard. He quickly put in a call to the fire station and raced to evacuate the barn-like Petrolane building which almost immediately was engulfed in flames.
Within minutes, Aberdeen Fire Chief Zane Mitchell was on the scene and as he would later relate to intrepid Aberdeen Daily World reporter John Hughes:
“From the minute we arrived it was obvious that we were dealing with a gas-fed fire that was out of hand, so I called in a general alarm, which pulls in off-duty personnel and fire rigs from Hoquiam, Cosmopolis, Central Park and Montesano. We have a mutual aid agreement for anytime there’s a big fire, and this one was a humdinger!” As some two-dozen propane tanks varying from five- to 48-gallons ruptured and exploded, Chief Mitchell put his focus on the 60-foot long white tank bearing the words “Flammable! No smoking or open flame within 50 feet,” It had recently been filled and held some 16,000 gallons of propane. “We knew that if that big tank blew half of east Aberdeen would have gone with it,” said Chief Mitchell. Aberdeen police officers erected roadblocks and diverted traffic. The State Patrol halted the heavy holiday traffic at the Pioneer Avenue stoplight in Montesano and rerouted it over Highway 107 to the Blue Slough Road and along the South Bank Road into Cosmopolis. As the fire crews aimed their hoses on the large tank, a light wind blowing from the south sent sheets of intense heat arcing across Wishkah Street.
Meanwhile, across the street in a frame house at 1114 E. Wishkah, 12-year-old Kathy King was babysitting her seven siblings and three other children as her parents and another couple had gone to Olympia for the day. Exhibiting coolness and responsibility well beyond her years, Kathy calmly led the children out the back door to safety before racing to neighboring homes to alert the residents of the danger. At 1110 E. Wishkah — present-day site of KFC — Mr. and Mrs. Paul Winkleblack and their 6-year-old son were napping. Kathy’s frantic shouts awoke them and they made their escape through the back door. Kathy then ran to another neighboring home at 1106 E. Wishkah where Robert Wakefield literally dragged his invalid mother out of the house as the heat intensified. Wakefield’s brother would later recount, “Their house was a total loss … all that was saved was just one thin bed sheet around my invalid mother.”
Between the already-warm day and the intense inferno raging just across the street, all three two-story, wood frame houses became super-heated and almost simultaneously exploded into flames. At 1120 E. Wishkah — present-day site of Taco Bell — was Fay Sutton’s 18-unit Flamingo Motel which minutes later also burst into flames, destroying 11 units, and at 1022 E Wishkah, one half of the big orange plastic Union 76 “golf ball” sign at John Carter’s new service station — present-day site of Wendy’s restaurant — was melted by the intense heat. In fact, the fire burned so hot that Aberdeen ladder truck driver Alfred Carlberg suffered burns to his hands from the steering wheel while moving his rig from the gas company yard.
As acrid, pitch-black smoke continued to belch from East Aberdeen, firefighters had the gas-fed fire at the Petrolane plant under control in about 45 minutes, and the houses across the street became the new battle zone with the fire department doing what they could to contain the fire and prevent its spread. As Chief Mitchell described it, “We were hampered by several factors when we tried to get in close to fight the motel and house fires on the north side of the street. The buildings were pretty much engulfed in flame and the geography of the area really put a harness on us — there was no alley behind the block, so we couldn’t get in there with the trucks and the foot of the hill was in the way, too.”
By 7 pm, the fire was largely extinguished and traffic began moving down Wishkah Street again but at a snail’s pace. Firefighters remained on the scene until midnight snuffing out small spot fires on the roofs of houses adjoining the main fire area as well as a grass fire that got going alongside the Haven Tavern.
From Tyler Street to Benn Street, the fire effectively wiped out both sides of the 1100 block of east Wishkah. In addition to the three houses, the motel, and the Petrolane/Grays Harbor Cedar Tile Company structure, three log trucks, three station wagons, a dump truck, a bus and a boat were lost to the flames. In all, the combined losses came to about $200,000 in buildings and property. Considering the intensity of the fire and the very real possibility of a massive explosion from the 16,000 gallon tank, it was fortunate that there were no fatalities and that injuries were relatively light as five firefighters were hospitalized overnight for smoke inhalation and non-serious burns.
In a later press briefing, Chief Mitchell gave credit where it was due, “This was a tremendous team effort. These firemen did a fantastic job and I’m pleased as punch with all of them. Special thanks should also go to the police and State Patrol. We functioned as a unit and the result was that we contained a fire that could have taken on disastrous proportions.” He also acknowledged the young heroine, “Kathy really did a wonderful job. Her level-headedness probably saved some lives.”
Roy Vataja is the son of Finnish immigrants and would like to see the terms “Humdinger!” and “Pleased as punch!” brought back into the general lexicon.
