Fire claims second Bonners Ferry business

BONNERS FERRY — A blaze that broke out Thursday at TrussTek in Bonners Ferry kept firefighters from Bonners Ferry and Boundary County fighting fire well into Friday.

Crews responded to the 6:16 p.m. call that consumed the warehouse and part of the office building.

Since 1990 TrussTek located at 64679 Highway 2, manufactured and engineered roof and floor trusses for Idaho, Montana and Washington.

This is the second major structure fire in Boundary County in a month.

Riverside Auto’s 25-year-old building was destroyed in an Aug. 3 fire.

Detective for Boundary County Sheriff’s Office, Mike Naumann with the Idaho Fire Marshalls’ office in Coeur d’Alene are investigating the cause of the four-alarm fire, according to North bench Fire District Chief Bill McCabe.

McCabe said that his volunteer firefighters gathered at 6 p.m.  to begin routine training in the station across the highway from TrussTek, when they saw smoke and then flames. 

“I was on my way to report it to dispatch and right when I reached dispatched they toned us out,” said McCabe.  “They had so much stuff stored in the building,  the owner told us they were storing wheat flour and bulk food items that were lost. There was huge fire load there.”

  McCabe was pleased with the good response of mutual aid (assistance from the other volunteer fire districts as well as the city fire department). 

  “I knew right off the bat that I needed to get a call out for mutual aid, it is such a huge warehouse I knew it would take a lot to put that one out,” McCabe said.

According to McCabe the North Bench crew was mopping up until early Friday morning and some remained on scene as late into the afternoon.

“We used about 8,000 gallons per second at the beginning to knock down the fire,” he said. “ We had a fire hydrant across the street so we had to reroute traffic because the hose laid across Highway 2.”

Hall Mountain, South Boundary,  Curley Creek fire districts  and Bonners Ferry city fire department also responded to the call.

“It was about 6 p.m. when I smelled smoke then I  saw smoke coming from the peak of the roof of the building while I was driving down the Highway,” said employee Jonathan Holdeman. “ Everyone was gone for the day and the building was locked up, I ran around back just to make sure everyone was gone.”

“When the call came in we already had gear on and trucks up for our training and were able to hop on and get to the call,” said South Boundary Fire fighter David Wilson.

Marcus Byler part owner of TrussTek watched in shock and was saddened by the fire but relieved that  quick thinking recovered two of the company’s main database servers.

“This will help us to rebuild and contact our customers so we don’t get set back too far, these databases show customers, ongoing jobs and job history and we back up daily,” said Byler.

Emma and her son Evan Schlabach who works as a designer at TrussTek went to the scene after receiving a call from her husband about the blaze.

“I have worked here three and a half years and I am a little shocked about this,” said Evan Schlabach.

“This is kind of devastating, the important thing though is people are safe and were all out of the building,” said Emma Schlabach.

Travis Marble said he has worked for TrussTek for two years as a sawyer cutting lumber for the trusses. 

“We only worked a half day today so a lot of people went home already, some people stayed out in the back building to work but luckily that building never got touched,” said Marble.

Boundary County Sheriff’s office requested that Bonners Ferry Fire Department send crews to the scene.

Bonners Ferry Fire Chief Pat Warkentin was grateful to the The Bread Basket Bakery and members of the Mennonite Church who fed all the crews who had been fighting the blaze.

  “They did a wonderful job for the fire fighters, and we all appreciated their efforts,” Warkentin said.