WESTPORT, Wash. — Witnesses in Grays Harbor County said they heard seven explosions during a fierce fire at a local winery Tuesday night.
The fire tore through the Cranberry Road Winery and Bogwater Brewery on SR 105 and Schafer Island Approach in Westport.
“It's pretty devastating,” owner Chris Tiffany said,
Tiffany could only helplessly watch as his dream was reduced to rubble.
“It’s probably the first time my wife has seen me cry,” Tiffany said. “Everything we have is in the business.”
The winery opened in 2012.
Some cranberries made it, but because of all the ash and smoke, Tiffany doesn't know if they're any good.
And he can't do anything with them because his processing equipment was destroyed along with everything else.
Tiffany said he's looking at a $2 million loss.
“We just finished harvest. I just started grape wines, fruit wines, they’re all destroyed,” Tiffany added. “I have to start over.”
Loyal customers are also pretty heartbroken.
“It's just not fair that such good people have horrible things happen to them,” customer Barb Pomeroy said. “Thank God no one was hurt or killed.”
Tiffany is thankful for that, too.
The fire ignited when a propane tank on a forklift somehow exploded.
Witnesses said they heard seven explosions shortly after the fire broke out after 6 pm.
“Luckily we closed early yesterday,” Tiffany said. “Luckily, because normally we would have had employees ‘til 8 o'clock.”
There's no doubt he will rebuild.
But it will take time.
It's his three workers and their families he's worried about now.
"It's tough going into holiday season because we have our employees," Tiffany said. "I don't know how things will work for them, what we can do for them."
Tiffany said he's hoping to re-open the brewery and restaurant by next summer.
He has to wait until next year's harvest so it could be another year before he can get his cranberry wines going and several more years for the grape wines.
KIRO
