Fire Destroys 3 Businesses In St. Maries Fire Chief Estimates Damage At $500,000

Shortly before 2 a.m. Tuesday, Tom Moss woke up, suddenly uneasy.

He glanced at the clock, then out the window.

A police cruiser, lights flashing, stopped by his nearby business. Then he saw the smoke.

Moss’ manufacturing plant, two adjacent businesses and an apartment were gutted Tuesday, in a blaze that St. Maries Fire Chief Bill Cowin said was the city’s largest in nearly 20 years.

The blaze burned about a quarter of a city block and closed down part of Main Street - which doubles as state Highway 5 - for the day.

Although no one was hurt, Cowin estimated the damage at more than $500,000.

The chief said the fire apparently began in the St. Maries Boot Corral shop, although the cause was still unknown by evening. Cowin called in state arson investigators, and fire marshals began combing the rubble around 5 p.m.

Cowin said it’s routine to call in investigators on such a large blaze.

“This pretty much maxed out our resources,” he said Tuesday afternoon, as tired firefighters rolled up hoses and doused smoldering hot spots.

“We’re running on a little bit of adrenaline.”

When Moss saw the smoke, he ran to the building and met patrolman Larry Sotin. Moss said flames were shooting out of the Boot Corral, next to his boot-liner manufacturing business, T.J. Moss and Co. Manufacturing, Inc. The two shops shared an attic, allowing the blaze to spread quickly.

“We could see the flames from our house” two miles away, said 19-year-old Mark Haskell, son of Boot Corral owner Larry Haskell.

St. Maries city and rural fire crews arrived, and were soon joined by company firefighters from the St. Maries Potlatch lumber mill.

Hose crews entered the front of the shops and found heavy smoke and flames in the shared attic. The fire spread quickly to the adjacent St. Maries Sausage Co., which was also gutted. Owners of the sausage company lived in the apartment, but were away in Seattle, Moss said.

“We got driven back out of the building, and had to switch to defense, trying to keep it from spreading to the surrounding buildings,” said Cowin.

It took more than two hours to knock down the flames, Cowin said. Firefighters were hampered by subzero temperatures, which froze puddles into slick sheets of ice. The nearby Elks and Eagles lodges were opened to warm and feed firefighters.

“I know there’s nothing left, but there’s nothing they could have done,” said Moss. “There was no way they could stop it.”

Cowin said the last fire of such magnitude was in the late 1970s, when the St. Maries’ Safeway grocery store burned.

Moss said he will rebuild the boot-liner business, although the fire destroyed all the equipment, fabric and patterns. The shop employed eight people, he said.

“We were insured, but with that much machinery, you can never get enough insurance,” he said.

Moss spent much of Tuesday calling boot manufacturers to tell them his plant had burned.

In Spokane, White’s Shoe Shop Manufacturing and Repair spokesman Jack Burk said the company, which orders more than 12,000 boot liners from Moss each year, wouldn’t be affected much. The company has alternate suppliers, he said, and lined boot sales are slow this time of year anyway.

In Kellogg, Jim Hoffman, a spokesman for Hoffman Boots, wasn’t quite as optimistic. Hoffman’s is substantially smaller than White’s, but relies on T.J. Moss for about 2,500 to 3,000 pairs of liners every year.

“It’s going to definitely affect us,” Hoffman said, although the company has a supplier in Wisconsin.

Haskell said his father was also insured and intends to rebuild the Boot Corral.

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The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Rich Roesler Staff writer Staff writer Alison Boggs contributed to this report.