Multiple people were reported killed while others suffered chemical burns and other injuries in Longview, Washington, after a major chemical implosion was reported at a pulp and paper mill Tuesday morning, authorities say.

The rupture of a tank containing white liquor was reported around 7:20 a.m. at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in Longview, according to the city’s Fire Department. The incident involved a vat of chemical treatment product.

Residents are being asked to stay away from Industrial Way and avoid the surrounding areas while emergency crews go to work, the Fire Department said. The department said there is no immediate threat to the public.

Ten people were injured, Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. Nine were employees of the paper mill and one was a firefighter.

“It is impactful” for the Southwest Washington community, Goldstein said, acknowledging that there are first responders who have friends who work on the site.

Officials have not yet reported how many people were killed. The scene remains in recovery phase, as emergency responders continue operations. The number of missing people is also unknown.

Those hurt suffered injuries ranging from minor to critical, Goldstein said. The firefighter has since been released from the hospital.

The injured were taken by ambulance to hospitals in Longview and Vancouver, Clark County, the department said.

There are no immediate health concerns resulting from the implosion, said Washington State Department of Ecology spokesperson Anna Izenman. But spill responders are monitoring for affected wildlife.

The facility in Longview is a pulp and paper mill with around 550 employees, producing about 280,000 tons of bleached liquid packaging paperboard and wet lap and slush pulp each year, according to Ecology. The liquid packaging plant has about 450 employees.

Spill responders are deploying to the paper mill, where a tank released a substance called white liquor into the storm drain system, which connects to the diking system, Izenman said. The diking system’s pumps, which discharge to the Columbia River, have been shut off.

White liquor is a mix of heavily caustic chemical compounds that, when mixed with heat, breaks down the wood used by these types of mills so pulp can be extracted later in the process.

The tank containing the white liquor held about 80,000 gallons and was roughly 60% full, Goldstein said.

White liquor can’t be contained and collected like oil, Izenman said. It can only “self-neutralize” with water over time.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., had several tours planned throughout Southwest Washington Tuesday but canceled the open press events out of respect for those affected, her office said.

“Today’s implosion was an absolute tragedy,” the lawmaker said in a statement.

Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. was cited twice by the state Department of Ecology in 2024 for violating its air and water permits, and two times by OSHA for violations in the last five years.

The company was fined $2,000 by Ecology for discharging more solids into its treated wastewater than was allowed and $4,500 for releasing more sulfur dioxide into the air than its permit allows.

Nippon was also cited by OSHA in April 2025 related to moving equipment that was involved in an accident and in September 2021 related to employees lacking fall protection, for which it was fined $700.

There were two complaints filed against the company this year as well, one for health concerns and another for safety concerns, both of which are still open.

The North Pacific Paper Corporation, which shares an address with the Nippon Dynawave mill and makes products using pulp from the facility, failed to meet environmental regulations regarding carbon monoxide and “volatile compounds” twice in 2021, according to inspection data collected by the EPA.

The EPA also noted that the North Pacific Paper Corporation had another violation logged in March, but the nature of the violation was not immediately clear.

In 2017, about 4,000 to 5,000 gallons of sulfuric acid spilled at the Nippon Dynawave plant, Cowlitz County and Longview city officials said at the time, according to past news reports. The spill was quickly contained and no one was injured.

The company called 911 to report the incident, which was managed securely by a containment moat, Nippon Dynawave said at the time.

Japan-based Nippon Paper Industries bought the liquid packaging mill in 2016 from Weyerhaeuser Co., a Seattle-based timberland company, for $285 million.

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(Seattle Times staff reporters Conrad Swanson, Paige Cornwell and Lulu Ramadan and news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this story.)

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