12/07/2023
Well my friends, I think I’m at a point where I can share the news. Last Wednesday early morning at 2:54am I was awakened by my wife who explained that it appeared our business Encore RV was on fire! The Ring camera detected the fire trucks on our front parking lot and there was a tremendous amount of smoke rolling in front of the camera. We rushed down right away and we arrived just before 3am (as some of you know, I can drive pretty fast), unfortunately, my wife Margaret was correct, the building was ablaze.
We lost our entire weld shop to the fire and had damage throughout the production facility and offices. The good news is a security guard for another company was making his rounds and saw the smoke and flames and called 911. The fire department responded in 8 minutes with 6 fire trucks including two ladder trucks, two ambulances and other support vehicles. Every firefighter was moving in different directions all with purpose…it was impressive how well orchestrated this was with each person handling their responsibilities…teamwork like I’ve never witnessed before.
It was extremely surreal pulling up and seeing this all of this unfold at the building I go to every day. We were very thankful that no one was in the building, no one was injured or killed and we had a security guard in the area that saw the fire and called early enough to prevent a total loss.
This is a setback for us, but we have a believable team at Encore and we will be back up and running in short time. We have been evaluating new buildings to move into, so hopefully we are able to put something together quickly.
I can’t thank the Elkhart Fire Department enough for their absolutely incredible response time and well executed game plan to bring this fire under control so quickly…it could have been so much worse. You just don’t realize how dangerous their job is until you see them entering a dense smoke filled building with little to no visibility and having no idea what’s inside that burning building. Watching them walk on the roof with flames all around them is a lot more terrifying to see in person than on a television, but these guys have a job and they do it without hesitation. I’m thankful there are people out there brave enough to take on these careers.
For this to happen the day before Thanksgiving gave a little extra special meaning to being thankful. Every day is a gift and the last thing we should ever do is take it for granted. Don’t let something tragic in your life have to occur before you can truly be thankful!
Have no worries, we will be back stronger than ever…this is just one of life’s challenges and we have always been up for a challenge…especially when we have the team we have beside us!
Elkhart City Fire Department
