News

Destruction of large packing operation deals another blow to apple country

A firefighter walks from the packing house fire on Saturday morning. On Friday, 150 firefighters from 22 departments were on the ground fighting the blaze.

By Bill Moss, Published: February 1, 2025

EDNEYVILLE — A fire that spread from outdoor apple boxes into a giant indoor storage space destroyed Apple Wedge Packers on Friday, demolishing one of the largest packing operations in the county and dealing another crippling blow to an industry still reeling from Hurricane Helene.

A worker on site called 911 at 1:11 Friday afternoon to report the fire outdoors, said Henderson County Fire Marshal Kevin Waldrup.

“This whole back of the thing was full,” he said, pointing to the warehouse. “That's where they stored all their all their wooden bins. So (Edneyville firefighters) got here at 1:16 and at 1:24 it had already gotten inside. The wind was blowing this way, and it just spread through the building with the wind.”

Once the magnitude of the fire was known, dispatchers issued an “all-call” for mutual aid, activating all 12 volunteer fire departments in the county, plus Hendersonville plus departments in Buncombe, Transylvania and Polk counties — 22 departments in all and around 150 firefighters. Even so, there was little they could do to save the structure and contents from the conflagration.

“When fire gets into these buildings with spray-foam insulation, it burns like that," Edneyville Fire Chief Robert Griffin said. As for the cause, "We think somebody may have been doing something outside but we have no confirmation of anything."

Although firefighters were able to prevent the fire from spreading to an adjoining farm office, the blaze destroyed Greg Nix’s packing operation.

“We got it cut off from the other side, on Moss farm, but Apple Wedge Packers is a total loss,” Waldrup said. Nix, he said, is just now starting the process of filing a claim for the loss, expected to run into the tens of millions. “He already talk to his agents and he’s got one coming out tomorrow,” the fire marshal said.

There were a couple of positives. One, no one was hurt, either among the eight workers on the scene shortly after noon Friday, or among the corps of firefighters. Two, a city of Hendersonville fire hydrant was “right across the street,” Waldrup said. “We got lucky.”

Otherwise, there’s been nothing but bad luck for Henderson County’s signature farm commodity since last Sept. 27. After the hurricane, growers saw the loss of part of the 2024 crop and most of the retail U-pick and ag tourism season and the destruction of orchards, apple bins, farm roads, barns, tractors and other equipment. For many, the 2025 season hangs in the balance, agriculture officials say; if growers don't get disaster relief soon they may be unable to farm this year.

“Since Helene has torn through our community, our growers were already hanging on by a thread, and this is the last thing that we need,” observed state Sen. Tim Moffitt, who drove to the fire scene Saturday morning to check on the situation. “Thankfully, there were no injuries, but the economic injuries continue to be sustained every day in our community. That's the legacy of Helene.”

Jerred Nix, another grower and a cousin of Greg Nix, said the loss of the Bearwallow Road operation reverberate across the local farm economy.

Apple Wedge bought apples from farmers across the county both for fresh pack and processing, and had contracts with major supermarket chains like Walmart and Ingles. And because it had large cool-storage capacity, it could buy apples during the harvest for use as needed throughout the year.

“There’s nobody that does the specialty packing that he does,” Jerred said when asked whether other commercial operations could absorb the work. “He had a massive cider operation. He probably had more cider in the stores than he did apples.”

The Lightning was unable to reach Greg Nix for an interview. On the Apple Wedge website, the sixth-generation farm family traces its legacy from working the land with horses and planting first golden delicious tree in the county in the late 1800s to GPS-guided tractors, sonar-guided sprayers and agronomy advancements that have increased density from 22 to 1,210 apple trees per acre.