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Aerial views of the Nippon Dynawave Packing Company in Longview, Wash., showing the scene major chemical tank implosion at a Southwest Washington paper mill, May 26, 2026.
Brandon Swanson / OPB
At least nine people are still unaccounted for after a chemical tank ruptured at a Southwest Washington paper mill Tuesday morning, killing at least one person and injuring nine others.
The tank was still unstable as of Tuesday afternoon, hampering recovery efforts at a Longview, Washington, mill that employed nearly one in 100 residents of the area.
Emergency personnel were facing hazardous conditions as they worked to structurally reinforce and stabilize the site before they could safely proceed, according to an update issued by the Longview Fire Department at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
As Longview and Cowlitz County firefighters worked to stabilize the site, they also learned that the tank of white liquor, a compound used in the paper-making process, was 10 times larger than they initially estimated, and could still hold as much as 90,000 gallons of the corrosive chemical.
The exact toll of the incident is not yet clear. Multiple people were transported to regional hospitals, including one firefighter. Some employees of the paper mill were still unaccounted for as of Tuesday afternoon.
At a press conference Tuesday evening, fire department officials referred to the tank rupture as a “failure.” They had previously referred to the incident as an “implosion.”
A shaken community
Cowlitz County officials directed family members of Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. workers to a “family assistance center” at the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers union hall in Longview.
People walk out in an embrace as they leave the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers Local 153 Hall, where dozens of family, friends and others gathered in Longview, Wash., on May 26, 2026, in the wake the Nippon Dynawave Packing Company chemical implosion.
Eli Imadali / OPB
Many crying family members filed in and out of the assistance center, which was staffed by social workers, emergency responders, law enforcement and others. None wanted to speak on the record. Some came to leave flowers.
Crystal Moldenhauer, a former Longview School Board member, said she lost a friend in the incident and is concerned about others she knows who work at the paper mill.
“These are just friends for me. It’s numbing. But these wives of these men, I can’t even describe how much pain they are in right now,” Moldenhauer said. “And now having to explain to their children that someone’s not coming home.”
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said Tuesday afternoon he was heading to Longview to meet with local responders and other officials. National Guard teams have been directed to remain on alert, Ferguson said, and state environmental and workplace regulators were on the scene.
The Washington Department of Labor and Industries, one of the agencies involved in Tuesday’s response, has inspected the Nippon Dynawave plant three times over the past five years. The state agency has cited the facility for violations, but all were unrelated to storage safety or chemical processing.
PeaceHealth spokesperson Jim Murez confirmed to OPB at least one person has died.
Longview Fire emergency responders drive out of Nippon Dynawave Packing Company after a chemical implosion early in the morning at the Longview, Wash., facility on May 26, 2026.
Eli Imadali / OPB
PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center in Longview received nine people hurt in the incident. Six were in fair condition and two have been transferred elsewhere, officials said mid-day Tuesday.
A Legacy Health spokesperson confirmed it is caring for patients from the incident at its Legacy Oregon Burn Center, the only specialty burn clinic in the region.
About 1,000 people work at the site, in a region of about 115,000 residents. Many community members have been shaken by news of the disaster, Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said Tuesday afternoon.
“The people who are responders here have friends and relatives that work on site. It is something that is impactful,” Goldstein said.
The injuries were caused when a 900,000-gallon chemical tank ruptured, fire department officials said.
Safety history
Although the Washington Department of Labor and Industries’ past inspections have not found violations clearly related to Tuesday’s incident, the agency has issued fines against the Nippon Dynawave plant for other concerns.
Nippon Dynawave Packing Company in Longview, Wash., May 26, 2026.
Brandon Swanson / OPB
The company was fined $700 after state inspectors found a platform higher than four feet lacked protective guardrails.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was fined $2,700 because not all employees wore required face coverings.
Last year, a worker lost a finger. The state cited Nippon Dynawave for failing to keep equipment in place until an inspector could arrive on site and investigate.
“Rigging equipment that was involved in an employee receiving a finger amputation was moved from its original position from where it was on the day of the incident,” the violation notice described. “By moving the equipment, it can affect the accuracy of determining all factual information.”
Regulators didn’t issue a fine after that incident. Washington State Department of Labor and Industries spokesperson Matt Ross said there were two ongoing inspections at the Longview facility.
One was into a valve on an aqua ammonia clarifier tank and the other was opened in May after a complaint about a sinkhole created by a failed drain. Both were reported to the state anonymously, Ross said, and were unrelated to Tuesday’s incident.
“After the first responders have done what they need to do, our role will be to find out what happened, why, and how we stop it from happening again,” Ross told OPB. “Inspections can take up to six months, with results released after that work is done.”
The Washington Department of Ecology, which regulates air and water quality for the facility, sent staff to Longview Tuesday and will investigate any environmental consequences of the tank rupture.
Spokesperson Brittny Goodsell said the agency is not associated with regulating the tank involved in the incident.
FILE – Steam is seen at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company plant, which manufactures liquid packaging board, in March, 2024, in Longview, Wash.
Jenny Kane / AP
“They [Nippon] don’t have any recent environmental penalties from Ecology,” Goodsell told OPB. “And nothing in their compliance history points to a current issue either.”
Nippon did report to the agency that an alkaline solution known as white liquor was involved in the tank rupture and may have spilled into a nearby drainage ditch. That spill is a violation of the water quality permit the company holds with the department.
“Obviously in that instance, they weren’t able to treat anything beforehand,” because of the nature of the incident, Goodsell said. “The facility did what they needed to do by letting us know about it as soon as they could.”
The spills team with the department will evaluate the impact on the ditch, she said, and work with the company to figure out next steps.
A ‘mass casualty scene’
Despite the scale of the incident, there were no threats to the city or surrounding areas beyond the Nippon Dynawave campus, Longview Fire Department Battalion Chief Mike Gorsuch said.
Gorsuch described the site of the incident on Industrial Way as a “mass casualty scene.”
Multiple people experienced chemical burns and inhalation injuries, although it was not immediately clear how many people were hurt or how serious the injuries were, Gorsuch said. He said first responders decontaminated people and took them to nearby medical centers.
Firefighters asked people to stay away from the site of the incident, which was first reported at 7:19 a.m.
Regional hazardous materials crews were on the scene after the large supply tank at the mill ruptured, Gorsuch said.
The response might also last overnight, said officials, who plan to offer another briefing at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
The mill in Longview is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Nippon Paper Group, a major global pulp and paper products company.
Nippon purchased the mill from Weyerhaeuser in 2016 for $285 million.
The facility makes liquid packaging board — like what’s used for milk cartons — as well as pulp, according to the Washington Department of Ecology.
The mill makes about 280,000 tons of bleached liquid packaging paperboard and wetlap and slush pulp each year.
The Nippon Dynawave office in Longview is not commenting on the incident. OPB has yet to hear back from its parent company.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
