Tour

I had the chance recently to tour the Pacific Fibre Mill just out of North Plains. It is the mill site that you can see to the south as you travel on Highway 26 to and from Portland. The tall hopper bins are most noticeable with massive log decks out beyond the hoppers.

Pacific Fibre Products has three whole log chipping facilities, located in Longview, WA., Molalla, OR and North Plains, OR. They supply wood chips to Nippon Paper and West Rock Paper, both in Longview, WA, and Georgia Pacific Paper in Wauna, OR.

After seeing the basics outside, we were ushered indoors to see the operation from every angle with the use of live camera feeds throughout the facility. Safety first with quality control are constant requirements of this busy mill.

With  30 log truck loads a day and six million board feet of logs on site at any given time it is hard to imagine that there are no large dump bins of refuse created during the manufacturing cycle. There is no refuse. Every bit of the log is used in some capacity for commercial use. They process wood waste/bark and log yard debris into ground covers and soil mixes. PFP’s motto is: “Nothing Beats Reliability in Products or People!”

From this angle the chipper looks anything but portable, but that is exactly what it is. The entire unit on this platform is on wheels, and they are prepared if there is a malfunction that could close the whole mill. Everything would grind to a halt if the chipper were to fail. A backup unit is sitting a few hundred feet away and ready to be slipped into place at a moments notice.

Large conveyor shafts move the product either up into the large hoppers or underground to be sorted for the other products.

While we were at the facility, the chipper was shut down for a short period while the sharpened blades were replacing the worn ones inside the 10 foot diameter circular chopping wheel. It took efficient workers less and a half hour to dismantle and replace the sharp steel blades that are the heart of the operation so the chipping could resume.

Products range from beauty chips (flat 1 inch square chips that are beveled on the edges) for decorative bio-ground cover. Sawdust for blueberry farmers. Orchid bark for specialty planting. Hog fuel (the stuff some people would consider as waste) can have bits of dust, needles and the like, yet holds together well for paths that are walk-on areas. Even an occasional rock that happens to find its way into the mix is sifted out and recycled.