Scott Fallon | NorthJersey.com

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A year after much of its Elmwood Park campus was destroyed in an epic fire, the Marcal Paper company now finds itself on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis — just weeks after it reopened.

The company, which many thought would never recover from the 10-alarm blaze in January 2019, is now running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, producing 170 tons of paper towels and toilet paper daily to try to keep up with consumers.

Demand has become so great that the 88-year-old company has started selling its inventory of paper towels and toilet paper already made and stored at its facility.

"We have to," said Rob Baron, Marcal's president and CEO. "The demand exceeds the paper coming off the machine."

For weeks, consumers have been purchasing paper products in bulk as the coronavirus spread, officials urged the public to practice social distancing and the possibility of quarantines loomed. Supermarkets across the U.S. ran out of the items quickly and struggled to restock. Even Amazon said it was having trouble meeting demand.

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Fire at Marcal Paper in Elmwood Park NJ

The panic shopping has led to surreal consequences — from people in Oregon calling 911 about toilet paper shortages to officials in Ohio warning residents not to flush other paper products like baby wipes down the toilet in lieu of toilet paper.

New Jersey consumers have been seeing paper product shelves at supermarkets and big-box stores fast become bare. The paper industry didn't see it coming.

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"Six weeks ago, coronavirus wasn't on anyone's radar," Baron said. "Then we slowly saw an uptick. But it wasn't until the weekend before last when we saw inventories just plummet."

Marcal has slowly been getting back on its feet after it reopened nearly a year to the day after it shuttered.

The fire on Jan. 30, 2019, destroyed 450,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 21 paper-making lines in about eight hours. It also brought down the iconic red Marcal sign that had loomed over Route 80 for decades.

No one died or was seriously injured even though 200 workers were still in the mill when the blaze broke out.

Today, operations are much smaller, but still frenetic.

"We've been getting ourselves back in business over the past six weeks," Baron said. "We're going in the right direction."

While many Marcal employees are now working remotely, a crew of 20 to 30 workers on 12-hour shifts are at the mill churning out paper products.

Workers are told to stay at least 6 feet away from one another to lessen potential spread. And the only visitors to the mill are mostly mechanics to fix machines.

The mill is churning out about 60% toilet paper and 40% paper towels as opposed to its usual 50/50 production, Baron said.

Baron wouldn't say how the upsurge in demand was going to help his recovering company's bottom line. But any increase in revenue is not worth what the world is going through right now.

"This is tough on the employees," he said. "The fire brought us closer together, and now a lot of us are working remotely."

"I wish this thing never happened," he said of the outbreak.