Ammonia threat contained at burning Oregon seafood plant, officials say

By Eduardo Cuevas, Jillian Sykes, CNN

(CNN) — The threat of an ammonia leak from a burning seafood plant in a coastal Oregon city has been contained after firefighters worked to control the blaze, local officials said Sunday afternoon.

The incident occurred at Pacific Seafood in Newport, Oregon, just before 9 a.m. local time, officials said. Thick plumes of smoke billowed over the quiet fishing town Sunday morning, which is located 90 miles southwest of Portland and has just over 10,000 residents.

“We recommend staying inside if you are in Newport today. If you must go outside, you should wear a mask. Updates will continue to be made on this post,” a statement from city officials said.

Officials initially identified low traces of ammonia in the smoke from the ongoing fire, John Fuller, a city spokesperson, said.

Anhydrous ammonia is used in refrigeration at the facility, the Oregon State Fire Marshal said in a news release. State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said the ammonia tank was found and did not appear to be punctured or leaking.

The Oregon State Fire Marshal earlier said it responded to the incident with a hazmat team because of the chemicals inside the facility. The team is using specialized equipment to monitor the air and modeling where there might be impacts to help with evacuations, state officials said in an update.

A spokesperson for Pacific Seafood said in a statement the company was not aware of injuries and all employees have been accounted for.

“Pacific Seafood is devastated by today’s fire in Newport,” Ashton Meier, the company’s vice president of resource sales and processing, said in a statement. “Although we are still working with emergency response officials to determine the full extent of the damage, we expect that it will be a major loss.”

The fire initially prompted evacuation notices in the area surrounding the processing plant, affecting hundreds of people. Officials said the evacuations were strongly recommended but not mandatory.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said in an afternoon update parts of the recommended evacuation areas in a one-mile radius of the plant were being scaled from evacuation orders to recommendations that residents should be ready to leave if conditions worsen. US 20 from Harney Street West to US 101 is closed, the sheriff’s office said.

An initial half-mile evacuation zone was in the city’s Bayfront area, which is mostly commercial and has some popular tourism areas with fewer homes, Fuller told CNN. The wider evacuation area includes residential areas. It is currently the off season for tourists, he said, though the city still sees some visitors on weekends.

Footage of the scene posted by the city on social media showed firefighters spraying the building down.

City officials had established a shelter for evacuees at a nearby elementary school but changed the location to a Lutheran church further north from the evacuation area out of caution, a city update said Saturday afternoon.

Fire crews were still working on putting out the fire, Fuller said Sunday afternoon. The cause of the fire and ammonia contamination are still under investigation. There are no reported injuries at this time, Fuller confirmed.

Oregon resident Coby Bertalotto shared videos with CNN showing a cloud of smoke over Newport.

“Driving through that thick smoke … It was thick enough that I couldn’t see the side of the road,” Bertalotto said. “I was very cautious.”

He described the smell outside as “rubbery,” affecting an area with several tourist attractions such as candy stores, bars and Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

“There are probably about three or four blocks that are just getting smoked out,” Bertalotto said.

Exposure to high levels of ammonia in the air may cause irritation to the skin, eyes, throat, and lungs and cause coughing and burns, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Some people with asthma may be more sensitive, the agency said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Nic F. Anderson and Maria Aguilar Prieto contributed to this report.