Markey Mechanical Ltd. owners Keith and Marg Tjosvold remain optimistic despite losing their building and two service vehicles to a fire early Sunday, June 16.
Keith said they hope to have a temporary building firmed up by the end of the week to use as their base until they can rebuild.
"Williams Lake is a very supportive community," Keith told the Tribune Tuesday. "We have received lots of texts, phone calls and messages from people."
Markey's service technicians are continuing to work and Keith and Marg are rounding up more machinery so they can resume full operations.
"Basically everything was destroyed," Keith said. "There is one bay where I might be able to get some of the furnaces and stuff that were in stock that didn't get burned but where there was water damage. I'll find out."
There are 12 people working for the company in total.
Williams Lake Fire Department assistant Cory Boyd said a call came initially for a vehicle fire at 11:57 p.m. Saturday. p.m. at the 1170 Mackenzie Ave. South location.
"When our duty officer arrived, the fire had extended into the awnings of the building and started to penetrate the roof," Boyd said. "The first engine crew began knocking down the fire while the ladder was set up to put water on the roof fire."
Boyd said the roof partially collapsed from fire damage shortly after and crews worked to stop the spread.
"The adjacent portion of the building was pressurized to help prevent the fire from spreading. The fire was stopped in the ceiling before entering the shop beside the pressurized portion."
Once the fire was control around 3 a.m., the ladder and duty truck with a four-man crew stayed on scene to extinguish hot spots where the roof had collapsed and were on scene until around 7:30 a.m.
Keith said some investigators were expected to visit the site on Thursday.
"Two of the vans burned up and it looks like someone was siphoning gas out of both of those because the door for both of those caps were open and the caps were missing and the yellow spout for a jerry can was laying on the ground beside there," Keith said. "I don't know how it turned from siphoning gas to burning."
He said they had two insurance companies because they own the building with Al Waterhouse under one policy and then Markey has its own insurance.
"We are learning the ropes on how it works when your building burns down," he said.
Willie Dye, Stampede Parade organizer, dropped by and offered them the opportunity if they wanted to participate he wouldn't charge them anything.
"That was good of him," Keith added. "The calls and the niceness kind of gets to you at times. We are grateful for that."
