{"id":675268,"date":"2026-05-31T03:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675268\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T03:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:15:15","slug":"longview-officials-recover-and-identify-all-nine-missing-in-nippon-mill-tank-implosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675268\/","title":{"rendered":"Longview officials recover and identify all nine missing in Nippon mill tank implosion"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONGVIEW, Wash. (KATU) \u2014 Officials in Longview, Washington, said Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. that all nine workers who were missing after a white liquor tank implosion <\/a>at the Nippon Dynawave paper mill have been recovered and identified.<\/p>\n

Longview Fire Chief Brad Hannig said the recovery effort reached its final milestone on the fifth day of the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday on day 5 of this incident, I can share that we have recovered the ninth and final missing employee of this incident,\u201d Hannig said.<\/p>\n

Cowlitz County Coroner Dana Tucker said her office had recovered and identified all nine people who were missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of this afternoon, our office has recovered and identified all nine missing individuals,\u201d Tucker said.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO | How you can help victims and families impacted by the deadly blast in Longview<\/a><\/p>\n

The incident happened May 26, when a large white liquor tank suffered what officials described as a catastrophic failure at the mill. Authorities said they are still investigating what caused the implosion.<\/p>\n

Out of the nine workers who have been confirmed dead, two of them were pronounced dead at the hospital in the hours after the blast.<\/p>\n

\"Longview<\/p>\n

Longview officials recovered and identified nine previously missing victims after a white liquor tank implosion at a paper mill in the Washington town. From left to right: 54-year-old Dale Miller and a family member, 26-year-old Clinton (CJ) Doran and his wife, 52-year-old Gilbert Bernal with a family member, 51-year-old John Forsburg, and 38-year-old Braydon Finkas with a family member.<\/p>\n

Officials had said Friday afternoon that crews recovered a seventh person who died in the implosion, and that as of Friday afternoon crews were working to recover the remains of two more victims. Saturday\u2019s update confirmed all nine have now been recovered.<\/p>\n

The names and ages released for the nine who died were: 52-year-old Gilbert Bernal, 29-year-old Tyler Covington, 27-year-old Brad Covington, 48-year-old Robert Wilson, 54-year-old Dale Miller, 35-year-old Jared Ammons, 38-year-old Braydon Finkas, 26-year-old Clinton (CJ) Doran and 51-year-old John Forsburg.<\/p>\n

A man named Dillon Miller<\/a> was also identified as one of the 11 victims, but Longview officials said he was out of their jurisdiction, and did not provide an age.<\/p>\n

The family of another man named Norman Barlow<\/a> said he was one of the 11 victims as well, although Longview officials had not identified him officially as of yet.<\/p>\n

Families of five of the 11 victims provided pictures of their loved ones to KATU News.<\/p>\n

KATU is working to confirm the spellings of the names as they were only listed verbally at a press conference on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Kurt Stich, chief of Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue, called the incident \u201ca horrific tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a horrific tragedy that has profoundly impacted our community, and we appreciate the public’s continued passion and support,\u201d Stich said.<\/p>\n

Officials described the recovery work as difficult and methodical amid debris.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was physically laborious work, it was very difficult, there was heavy items to be moved, and they had to continuously inspect the area,\u201d Stich said.<\/p>\n

Scott Tift, president of Western Pulp and Paperworkers, said the community response has stood out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who lives here and knows many of these families, I want to acknowledge the extraordinary of love and support this community has shown,\u201d Tift said.<\/p>\n

In a question-and-answer portion of the update, officials did not provide additional details about ongoing cleanup efforts at the site or the condition of the victims, saying only that cleanup is ongoing.<\/p>\n

Environmental officials also addressed reports of wildlife impacts in the area.<\/p>\n

Brooks Stanfield of the EPA said crews have been seeing increasing numbers of dead fish in local waterways.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen dead fish in the ditches and the canal network in Longview, and the numbers (of dead fish) have steadily increased,\u201d Stanfield said.<\/p>\n

Stanfield said reports to a hotline have helped direct crews.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting reports through our hotline that are reporting in dead fish and that\u2019s actually helping our crews, directing our resources to go… investigate those areas and recover those fish where we can, where it\u2019s safe to do so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The hotline number provided was 1-800-22-BIRDS.<\/p>\n

Courtney Serad of the Washington Department of Ecology said most reports have involved fish in ditches, and \u201cthe vast majority of those fish are carp.\u201d Officials also noted reports of dead tadpoles and small wildlife.<\/p>\n

Fundraiser pages for impacted families <\/p>\n

Family of Dillon Miller<\/a><\/p>\n

Family of Jared Ammons<\/a><\/p>\n

Family of CJ Doran<\/a><\/p>\n

Family of Gilbert Bernal<\/a><\/p>\n

Parents of siblings Tyler & Brad Covington<\/a><\/p>\n

Family and children of Tyler Covington <\/a><\/p>\n

Family of John Forsberg<\/a><\/p>\n

Family of Braydon Finkas<\/a><\/p>\n

Family of Dale Miller<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONGVIEW, Wash. (KATU) \u2014 Officials in Longview, Washington, said Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. that all nine workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-675268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}