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A destroyed warehouse smolders Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, on Roseburg Forest Products property in Weed, California, one day after the Mill fire burned through the adjacent Lincoln Heights neighborhood. (Ryan Sabalow/Sacramento Bee)

A police cordon is seen across a road in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood during the Mill Fire in Weed, Calif. Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022.

The operators of a lumber mill where firefighters first saw flames from the Mill Fire last week said they are investigating whether a water-spraying machine failed to cool ash byproduct sufficiently and potentially ignited the deadly blaze.

Roseburg Forest Products — which has run the veneer mill in the center of Weed, a tiny town near the Oregon border, since 1982 — released a lengthy statement Wednesday saying that the equipment at its co-generation plant may have failed. Company officials said they are working with state and local investigators to determine if it was the cause.

“The process for handling the ash and removing it safely depends on the proper functioning of the third-party machinery, so it’s logical to investigate the potential failure of that machinery as the proximate cause of the fire,” said Pete Hillan, a partner at Sam Singer Associates, a disaster public relations firm, who is now speaking as the lumber firm’s spokesperson.

A Cal Fire spokesperson could not immediately comment and was unaware of the company’s announcement, but officially there is no cause determined for the Sept. 2 fire that killed two people, injured three and destroyed more than 100 structures. The fire has burned almost 4,000 acres and is 65% contained.

Firefighters from a nearby Weed City Fire Department station first spotted flames from the area of the Roseburg property, a massive facility in the center of Weed. The flames, buffeted by high winds, quickly jumped Highway 99 to the west and blasted through a residential neighborhood.

The day after the fire, a company spokesperson told The Chronicle that the fire started on the company’s property or near it and fire investigators were probing an old warehouse where the company kept spare equipment. The company said there was no activity in the warehouse at the time of the fire, but that the nearby veneer mill, where they strip down lumber to prepare it for plywood, was operating at the time. The spokesperson, however, said there were no issues at the veneer plant or co-generation plant that powers the operation.

However, in Wednesday’s statement, Roseburg explained that the cooling equipment at the co-generation plant is now the focus of its investigation. The mill produces its own electric power by burning wood remnants. The generator ejects ash which is sprayed with cooling water using a “third-party supplied machine.”

“Roseburg is investigating whether the third-party machine failed to cool the ash sufficiently which thereby ignited the fire,” the company said.

While no official cause has been determined of the fire, Roseburg said it plans to provide $50 million for a community restoration fund for the “initial recovery needs of impacted residents.” The fund would assist residents with temporary shelter, medical supplies and treatment, transportation, clothing, food and water, and child care services, the company said.

“We know the fire has been devastating to Weed, and we are especially saddened by the loss of life,” Hillan said. “It has had a severe impact on our cherished neighbors, and on us, with three of our team members among those who lost their homes.”

The company employs 145 workers in the town of under 3,000 people.

Roseburg said it has hired San Francisco attorney Robert Julian, the lawyer who represented the interests of 70,000 fire victims during the Pacific Gas & Electric bankruptcy, to head up its Mill Fire response.

The company said it anticipates a two-week investigation into the fire cause. If Roseburg determines third party equipment or the company’s property ignited the fire, the company said it will request its insurers to acknowledge coverage and open a claims processing office in Weed with adjusters to review and pay community claims. If not satisfied with offers of payment, residents would be free to seek legal counsel, the company said.

The company plans to announce further details of the claim process on Sept. 14.

“While Roseburg is not admitting liability by setting up this community fund, as investigations are not complete, the company is aware of the painful process other communities endured when seeking assistance after similar fires,” the company said. “For that reason, Roseburg is setting up this fund before investigations are concluded so that the community can recover as quickly as possible.”

Roseburg is a privately owned company and one of North America’s leading producers of particleboard, fiberboard and laminates. It owns more than 600,000 acres of timberland in Oregon, North Carolina and Virginia.

Matthias Gafni is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mgafni

Matthias Gafni is an enterprise reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. He investigates stories in the East Bay and beyond. For almost two decades, Gafni worked for the Bay Area News Group - San Jose Mercury News, East Bay Times and Vallejo Times-Herald - covering corruption, child sexual abuse, criminal justice, aviation and more. In 2017, Gafni won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for his work on the Ghost Ship fire. In 2018, he was named SPJ Reporter of the Year in Northern California. The following year, he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for his work covering the Camp Fire. In 2020, he won a Polk Award for military reporting for his coverage of the Capt. Crozier saga involving a COVID-19 outbreak aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and graduated from UC Davis. He lives with his wife and three kids in the East Bay.