The next few hours/days I took it fairly well. It's just "stuff" right? It's all replaceable, I was happy no one was hurt nor did any firefighters enter the building. At the end of the day I still had a roof over my head.



I looked into getting a flight out sooner but due to weather delays I wasn't able to return home until Monday night. On my last day in Minnesota reality was starting to set in and I began to wonder am I really okay or were things just okay because I was avoiding it all? I began question what I was going to do, I lost almost everything I own, my shop and my job. Reality began setting in, how would I ever be able to afford a new space? Even if I DID accomplish that, buying another car AND acquiring all the tools and machinery again seemed impossible. For the first time, I broke.



I finally made it home and the following morning made it out to the shop. Driving down the road I saw all the fire/police/rescue vehicles parked along the side of the road. As I began to slowly creep up the driveway I kept stopping hesitant to see the building around the bushes. Finally peering over the bushes I saw from the corner of my eye my neighbors house. This once massive building was left to nothing more then a foot or two of rubble. I immediately began shaking and felt like vomiting. Reality had finally set in, I refused to think it was all gone and though I could salvage some things. I didn't care what it was, I was hoping I'd have at least a wrench or screw driver, just something so I wasn't left with nothing. I went straight to the trailer office since most of the things I stored there would be effected by the elements as It had snowed the day prior. My inventory of plush pistons and lanyards seemed to be okay.

I was then pulled away by the lead detective to answer a few questions and hear what they thought was the cause of the fire. The fire was declared unknown but they believe it was the wood burning stove that cause the fire. They believe the chimney pipes were backed up and created a back fire which burned back out. The irony of this is we have been using the wood burning stove since Nov/Dec and earlier this week we disassembled the chimney to clean it all out and rand two creole logs to clear the pipe out. Since then it was running the best it ever had, maintain a good flow drawing in air and exhausting smoke. That day the fire was put out at 3pm before the shop was vacant, in addition all vents were closed and we always put a cinder block in front of the stove as a precaution. If the shop is vacant ALL the circuit breakers are turned off except for one, which has the fridge pulled into it along with a tv, dvd player, microwave and speakers. Did the wood burning stove start the fire? I don't know but I'm skeptical about it. Either way it doesn't matter, it's the past. Whatever it was, I don't care, it wouldn't change anything. Please don't ask me any questions about this, they will be ignored.

After the brief questioning I was finally left alone. I began just staring at what was left. It was cold and felt like a war zone of a building that had just been bombed. The air was tainted with the smell of burnt rubber and smoke. This is all that's left.