FIRE RAVAGES JACKSON BUSINESS

JACKSON, Mo. -- John Beussink can't give a dollar value yet to the damage done by a fire to the cabinet-making business he has owned with his three brothers since the late 1960s, but he said it won't put them out of business.

"We still have the capability of making fine cabinets," said Beussink, one of the owners of Beussink Brothers Wood Works. "We're just out of a place to do it."

At 3:28 a.m. on Thursday a driver on Jackson Boulevard called firefighters to report a large fire at 1311 Gloria St., said Capt. Curtis Sparks of the Jackson Fire Department.

Nearly half of the woodworking shop was in flames when firefighters arrived, Sparks said.

A total of 24 firefighters from Jackson, Cape Girardeau and Millersville, Mo., departments responded with five fire trucks. It took an hour to bring the fire under control, but it was not extinguished until after 8 a.m., Sparks said.

No injuries were reported, he said.

Complications came from the makeup of the two-story building, which in some parts had a steel roof and concrete floor and in others a shingle roof and wooden floor. It made firefighting strategies harder, Sparks said.

The largest factor in overcoming the fire was the nature of the business where it started.

"With all the wood and sawdust, it was just loaded with fuel for a fire," Sparks said.

Beussink was awakened by a firefighter's phone call.

"We had talked for years that if a fire ever broke out everything would just go 'boom' with all the wood and fuels and solvents in there that we use," Beussink said.

State Fire Marshal Butch Amman investigated the scene Thursday, but a cause was not apparent.

From the outside of the building, considerable fire damage occurred in its northwest corner. A portion of the roof in that corner had caved in.

On Thursday afternoon, the four brothers and friends were digging through the rubble to salvage equipment. Almost every stick of wood in their inventory, besides some partially finished cabinets in the back of a moving truck, were destroyed.

"It was either damaged by the heat or water or smoke," Beussink said.

A few small handtools had been rescued, and a circular saw was loaded into the bed of a pickup truck.

"We might be able to save some of the large machines," Beussink said. "But not all. Some of them are worth $30,000 a piece."

The shop's office was mostly untouched by fire or smoke, so all records of customers' orders are intact.

"We will probably be behind on orders, but at least we have the records," Beussink said.

The four brothers had followed after their father and uncle, who started a wood-working shop in 1963 where Country Mart grocery store stands, Beussink said.

The uncle, Robert Beussink, will allow his nephews to run their business from a temporary shop at 2391 County Road 324 on their uncle's property.

The shop is too small to allow a showroom, but all nine employees will still have jobs, Beussink said. The old shop's phone number should be working by the weekend, he said.

Whether the old shop will be salvaged will depend on a structural engineer's report, Beussink said.