PORT ORCHARD — Sunday's marina fire triggered the largest fuel spill to hit Puget Sound in years.

State Department of Ecology officials say the five burned and sunken boats might release 2,000 gallons of oil, gasoline and diesel before their leaking hulls can be secured. By Monday afternoon, an oily sheen had spread beyond the Port Orchard waterfront and into the middle of Sinclair Inlet.

"It's possible that fuel is still being released, but we can't get to (the boats) because of all the fire debris," Ecology spokesman Larry Altose said Monday. "It's trending to be one of the largest spills we've had in recent years."

The spill likely is the largest in Puget Sound since 2009, when a passenger jet dumped about 5,000 gallons, according to Ecology's spill records.

The Port Orchard marina fire, which was reported just before 3 a.m. Sunday, destroyed six boat sheds and five boats at the Port Orchard Yacht Club on Bay Street.

No one was injured. The cause is under investigation.

More than 30 people from Ecology, South Kitsap Fire and Rescue and the Coast Guard responded.

The ecological impact is unclear. The spill occurred about a mile east of the Gorst estuary, which draws an abundance of migratory waterfowl during the winter and early spring.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife found no obvious signs of harm to birds or fish during an assessment Sunday.

"We saw birds in the area, but we're not aware of any that were directly impacted," said Brian McDonald, a Fish and Wildlife spill response specialist. "We'll continue to keep an eye on the situation."

Divers were able to recover about 125 gallons of fuel from one of the boats. Three boats couldn't be reached due to piled debris from the boat sheds. Hundreds of gallons of fuel could escape before divers can either plug or pump out the vessels.

Three of the boats were between 30 and 40 feet long. Two of the boats were just over 40 feet.

Initial reports noted six sunken boats, but it was later learned that one of the six burned boat sheds was empty.

Personnel from South Kitsap Fire and Rescue and the marina deployed a boom to contain the fuel before Ecology and the Coast Guard arrived. Absorbent pads from a nearby spill-response trailer also were part of the immediate response.

"The training from local crews were brought to bear to make the response rapid and robust," Altose said.

Additional booms were deployed at Blackjack and Ross creeks to prevent contamination of freshwater areas.

A large amount of floating fire debris has made cleaning up the water's surface difficult.

While much of the fuel is believed to have been contained by 3,000 feet of boom, the oily sheen was spread widely. Altose said the sheen won't have a significant environmental impact.

"A little goes a long way," he said. "It's very visible, but it's a small amount of oil."

The overlapping cleanup and fire investigation means both processes are taking longer than usual. It could take until the end of the week to finish.

"Everyone's being very careful as we remove debris from the boats," Altose said. "It's like a large version of pickup sticks."

Most spills over the past decade have been small ones — usually from pleasure boats that have sank, burned or run aground.

Spills in the thousands of gallons are rare. The last big one occurred in 2009 when an Asiana Airlines jet was forced to expel fuel when an engine failed. The 5,000-gallon spill formed a thin sheen along the shores of Vashon and Bainbridge islands, and stretched as far north as Port Madison Bay.

The last spill in Kitsap County requiring a multiagency cleanup was the sinking of the tugboat Chickamauga in 2014. The tug sank in Bainbridge's Eagle Harbor, releasing between 200 and 300 gallons of diesel.

According to Ecology records, the largest Kitsap spill over the past 25 years occurred in 1993 when the USS Camden released 5,400 gallons of oil into Sinclair Inlet. Four other spills in the thousands of gallons were linked to Navy ships moored in the inlet during the 1990s.

Most of the sound's recent spills are well below a thousand gallons. An emphasis on stopping spills before they start appears to be working, Altose said.

"If 2,000 gallons is considered large in this day and age, that really shows how good we're getting at prevention," he said.

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