A fire call to the Cannery Pier Hotel on Astoria’s waterfront enlivened an otherwise uneventful Labor Day Weekend 2008.

The U.S. Coast Guard assisted a 40-footer in trouble near Willapa Bay, Wash., but reported a quiet weekend as throngs of people enjoyed the mixed weather on the North Coast. There were no reports of serious traffic accidents in the region, although nine died in crashes elsewhere in Oregon.

Guests at Astoria’s Cannery Pier Hotel were evacuated Monday night when flames from a burning piling in the river threatened the four-story riverfront building.

The fire was likely caused by a cigarette discarded from one of the hotel balconies, Lt. Bob Johnson of the Astoria Fire Department said today.

He said when firefighters arrived at 8:27 p.m., an old, rotten piling was burning just six feet from the hotel, with wind blowing the flames toward the building, which is built on an old wooden dock. Johnson said firefighters stretched a hose line through the hotel and through a room to get at the flames, which were quickly extinguished.

“This is one of the reasons we made this a nonsmoking hotel,” Don West, the Cannery Pier Hotel’s manager, said today. He said there was no way to tell which room the discarded cigarette might have come from, but if there had been, the guest would have been told never to return.

West said he was pleased with the way his staff handled the emergency.

“They did exactly as they were trained,” he said. They got all of the guests out of the rooms and onto the dock and then went back to

double-check that no one was inside, he said. Only about 20 to 25 of the hotel’s 46 rooms were occupied Monday night, he said, but the hotel had earlier been filled with Labor Day holiday guests.

West commended the Astoria Fire Department. “They did an outstanding job. They were wonderful to work with.”

Lt. Johnson said the incident illustrates the need for all waterfront buildings to be sprinklered, especially since the city no longer has a fire boat. He said a 47-foot motor lifeboat from U.S. Coast Guard Station Cape Disappointment responded to the fire and the crew looked underneath the building to be sure nothing was burning.

The Lewis and Clark and Olney-Walluski fire departments also responded with personnel and equipment, Johnson said, and the Astoria Police Department assisted at the scene.

The one Coast Guard call of note was an assist for two people who were in distress southwest of Ledbetter Point Monday. Coast Guard Group Astoria received a call at 1 p.m. concerning two people aboard a 40-foot recreational vessel, the Nivlol, that was taking on water.

A 47-foot rescue boat crew from Coast Guard Station Cape Disappointment, Wash., was launched to the scene, along with a 47-foot rescue boat crew and a 25-foot response boat crew from Coast Guard Station Grays Harbor, Wash.

An HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Astoria transported two pumps to the vessel. The vessel was dewatered by the rescue boat crews and then towed to Ilwaco, Wash.

Petty Officer James Schweitzert said the Coast Guard safely moored the boat and assured it wasn’t going to sink at the pier.

No injuries were reported.

Around the state, Oregon State Police reported that nine people have died on Oregon highways during Labor Day weekend.

In a report issued Monday, the police say that’s two more than average since 1970 for the whole weekend and three more than last year.

The police say the highest highway death toll for the Labor Day weekend in the last decade was in 2005, with 10 fatalities.

The nine deaths this weekend came in seven accidents. None were on the North Coast.