Officials were back on site Friday afternoon trying to pinpoint the cause of a massive fire that destroyed the planer mill at North Enderby Timber.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at around 4:45 a.m. Friday.
“We had 23 members show up so it was a good crew and we knocked her down fast,” said fire chief Kevin Alstad.
“We got it contained quite fast so it didn’t spread too bad once we got there.”
Alstad was back on site in the afternoon to have another look through the rubble.
“I have an idea where it started but until I dig into it further I really don’t have an answer for you,” he said about a suspected cause.
Alstad said Monday that investigators are still looking into the cause of the blaze, but arson had been ruled out.
The fire started in between shifts at the mill, which has about 30 employees.
NET staff say the last planerman from night shift left around 4 a.m., and it was a logging truck driver who first noticed smoke coming out of the mill around 4:30 a.m., before day shift started.
Nobody was hurt in the fire, the second to hit the mill in nearly three years. However, eight employees were given temporary layoffs.
“It was tough. I hadn’t called employees about the layoffs and those who got it were upset,” said NET general manager Ben Hendrickson on Monday. “They did find out Friday. They are temporary layoffs and we hope to have the eight individuals back working as soon as possible.”
Hendrickson said company officials were still assessing the damage from Friday’s blaze, but that the mill would be keeping its customers serviced.
“We have a separate planer to put wood in there to do the vast majority of our planing,” he said. “It’s a fairly normal operation other than the equipment we lost in the fire.”
Friday’s fire caused an estimated $400,000 to $500,000 in damages to the mill.
Part of the cedar mill, where a number of large logs are turned into lumber, was destroyed by fire in October 2008.
NET is fully insured.