Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Fife, WA

Fife is a small city in Pierce County, east of Tacoma, that lies entirely within the boundaries of the Puyallup Indian Reservation — one of only three cities in Washington located fully on tribal land.

The reservation was created by the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854, and much of the land beneath modern Fife passed out of tribal ownership after the General Allotment Act of 1887, a history resolved by the landmark Puyallup land claims settlement that took effect in 1990.

The first non-Native settlers arrived in the late 1890s, and the community took its name from William J. Fife, a prominent Tacoma lawyer, Yukon prospector, and former head of the Washington National Guard.

In 1940, Fife was a berry-growing and truck-gardening crossroads described as a string of markets, taverns, shops, and a large balloon-roofed dance hall along the highway, and it had a large Japanese American farming community until Executive Order 9066 forced its residents into internment camps during World War II.

Fife was incorporated on February 11, 1957, largely to prevent Tacoma from annexing its business district, and the opening of Interstate 5 through the city on October 10, 1962, turned it into a highway commercial center.

The 2020 census counted 10,999 people in 4,130 households in Fife, with a median age of just 32.5 years — though its daytime population of workers and shoppers swells past 20,000.

Bisected by Interstate 5 next to the Port of Tacoma, modern Fife is dominated by car dealerships, warehouses, freight-forwarding companies, motels, and the Puyallup Tribe's Emerald Queen Casino.

Fife is a tideflat community so low and flat that the water table lies only 10 to 15 feet below ground in places, and parts of the land subtly rise and fall with Puget Sound's tides; its southern edge sits in the floodplain of the Puyallup River.

Most of the city is served by the Fife Public Schools district, whose only high school is Fife High School.

Notable people from Fife include Mark Emmert, former president of the University of Washington and of the NCAA, and NFL offensive tackle Kaleb McGary.