A fire destroyed an 88-year-old Fall River business. Here's what the owners are planning.
FALL RIVER — An 88-year-old family business was destroyed in a 5-alarm fire on Monday night, and while the owners are still processing the catastrophic blaze, they say that they will recover.
Despite the extent of the fire, there were no reported injuries, but nearly all of the inventory at Burns Power Tools was destroyed with estimates of the damages in the range of $1 million to $1.5 million.
“We’ll definitely be rebuilding,” said Zach Burns, president of Burns Power Tools. “We just have to take it one step at a time. Really, it's overwhelming right now. We’ll be back. In what form and where, I’m not sure now.”
Burns and his father, Jeff Burns, were on the scene outside the burned-out façade of the tool business located at 350 Mariano Bishop Boulevard on Tuesday morning while fire crews were still at the scene.
Burns said his great grandfather, John J. Burns, started the business in 1934.
It was formerly located on Rodman Street in the Corky Row neighborhood for years before the family moved the power tool business to the Mariano S. Bishop Boulevard location in 1984.
The fire also shuttered three businesses also located in the strip mall that include the Subway sandwich shop next door, Compliments Hair Salon and the Cozy Kettle breakfast and lunch restaurant.
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Cause of fire at Burns Power Tools
Fall River Fire Chief Roger St. Martin said his department is still determining the cause of the fire that started in the middle portion of the business.
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“We do have some video from inside the business, but it's not pointing directly at where the fire started. We think it was some type of system malfunction inside the building,” said St. Martin.
Because of the amount of lithium batteries inside the power tool business, firefighters had a difficult time putting down the fire.
Director of Inspectional Services Glenn Hathaway said they are still determining the extent of the damage to the building, which will also need to be inspected by a structural engineer.
Hathaway, who said he was at the scene Monday night and Tuesday morning, said there is significant damage to the roof of the structure.
“It’s in rough shape over there,” Hathaway said.
The nearby business that was closed sustained heavy smoke and water damage, but because that portion of the strip mall is an addition, those spaces were spared fire damage, said Hathaway.
Black Friday and holiday sales were in the works
With Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, Burns was ramping up inventory for their annual holiday sale running Dec. 5 through Dec. 9, along with a Black Friday sale.
Burns, who took over as president in 2014, said the business had steadily grown every year.
“We were having our best year; it's just been growing and growing. This is the worst possible time. We had it humming really good. We have a showroom here which everyone is in love with,” said Burns.
He expressed concern for his employees, and in addition to getting the insurance matters worked out, hopes to get a virtual server set up, since the existing server was destroyed in the fire.
“At least we can get them working on things like billing,” said Burns of the business' many employees. "We don’t want to lose them.”
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Burns Power Tools sustained about $1M in damage to inventory from fire
