Firefighters respond after a fire at a Pacific Seafood plant in Newport’s Historic Bayfront neighborhood on Oct. 25, 2026.
Jenny Kane / OPB
Newport authorities issued an evacuation order near a seafood plant after it caught fire Sunday morning. The city has opened shelters, and residents are being advised to stay indoors and to wear a mask to avoid inhaling the smoke from the burning facility.
Local officials say they began receiving calls around 8:51 a.m. about a blaze at 213 SW Bay Blvd, a Pacific Seafood plant along Yaquina Bay. There were concerns that the processing facility, which freezes fish, could release ammonia fumes into the air. The cause of the fire is still unclear, and officials say an investigation will proceed once the fire is extinguished.
The Oregon State Fire Marshall has deployed hazmat teams to handle chemical risks that could be potentially harmful to human health.
“Hazmat teams are on site and monitoring the air and have not detected any ammonia leaks,” said Oregon Rep. David Gomberg. “But they’re continuing to monitor the impact of the tank from a structural collapse.”
Newport Fire Chief Rob Murphy said ammonia tanks inside the building are currently stable and not punctured, and that smoke from the smoldering building is now their main concern.
Firefighters have contained the conflagration to the 11,000-square-foot facility, and it has not spread to other buildings in the area, according to Newport officials. Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department has since shrunk the immediate evacuation zone from the original 1-mile radius of the plant to the blocks between Bay Boulevard up to 10th St and Canyon Way to Hatfield Drive. The city has a shelter set up at Atonement Lutheran Church at 2315 N Coast Highway.
“The immediate challenges are access,” said Newport Fire Chief Rob Murphy. “The interior of the building wasn’t safe for our crews to go inside.”
No injuries were reported on site, either by workers in the building or firefighters, according to John Fuller, a public information officer for the City of Newport. He stated that there were approximately 30 to 40 workers in the building at the time the plant caught fire and all were safely evacuated.
The Oregon Coast Aquarium announced in the morning that it would be evacuating its premises and would be closed to the public for the rest of the day. Gomberg said it’s unclear yet if classes will be canceled tomorrow for local students.
“Pacific Seafoods is a critical part of our economy,” said Mayor Jan Kaplan at a press conference on Sunday afternoon. “Pacific Seafoods is a major employer in our community…We can’t really estimate the damage.”
Ashton Meier, vice president of resource sales and processing at Pacific Seafoods, told OPB via email that they were devastated by the fire in Newport and still working with emergency responders to analyze the loss.
“Our focus going forward will be on supporting our team members, our neighbors and the people of Newport,” Meier stated. “In the days ahead, we will continue to work with public safety officials to make sure they have the access and information necessary to determine the cause of the fire, the extent of the damage, and any ongoing hazards or effects.”
Nicole Brewer, a veteran fire investigator with Invista Forensics, stated that urban fires pose a different level of risk to human health than a wildfire.
“You’re going to be concerned about the contents of the warehouse,” Brewer said. Gases like ammonia are used to cool storage facilities like the seafood plant, but if inhaled, they can cause significant respiratory damage to people, according to the CDC.
There could be additional concerns around environmental pollution, Brewer added. “There’s a risk of those materials, if they’re hazardous, going into the water nearby, because of runoff from the firefighting efforts,” Brewer added.
59-year-old local resident Shelly Heim told the Associated Press that she and her husband hadn’t evacuated yet and didn’t smell anything off in the air. But she said they were monitoring the wind to make sure that the smoke wouldn’t blow in their direction.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she told the AP, citing Pacific Seafood’s impact on Newport’s fishing economy. “It’s a big asset. Hopefully they can rebuild.”
