The initial shock is still wearing off, but the president of Burgess Transportation says they plan to rebuild.
On Tuesday night, the Petitcodiac business was destroyed by fire. It started at around 8 p.m. and 12 fire departments, including Petitcodiac, Moncton, Riverview, Dieppe, Salisbury, Sussex and Norton were on the scene for over six hours.
“The shop was closed, and the kanitor smelled smoke and called 911. My son sent me a text and said the shop was on fire. He said, ‘It’s bad.’ So I just went out and by that time, they (firefighters) arrived and all went to work, I guess there were about 100 on-site. It was a pretty devastating feeling to sit there and watch her all go up in flames,” Derek Burgess told our newsroom.
Burgess was back on the site on Friday to see what was left.
“It’s pretty well a total loss. We had seven trucks inside the building that burned, and customer trucks of our own and probably $2 million in inventory and whatnot. So I think it’s a pretty substantial loss. It seems to be adding up to around possibly $8 to $10 million,” Burgess adds.
There’s no word on what caused the fire yet.
Burgess says they have a temporary location set up to service customers in their own fleet. Sixty people work for Burgess Transportation, and most are truck or equipment operators.
“We are insured, so it’ll take time, but we are going to rebuild. I imagine it’ll be a year at least before we get another place built. So going forward, I guess we’re just going to keep the wheels turning and carry on. It’s a big setback for us and you certainly don’t plan for this. It’s the last thing I thought we would have, to be quite honest, because we are pretty safety conscious and do everything the best we can.”
Burgess is relieved that no one was hurt in the fire or helping to extinguish it.
“The community has been overwhelmingly generous and has offered a lot of help. That is very much appreciated,” Burgess adds.
