2006-11-14 CHALLENGER PALLET RECOVERS FROM FIRE

A large business in Jefferson County is picking up the pieces after a ravaging fire this past summer. Challenger Pallet and Supply is one of the largest suppliers of pallets in the Northwest. Andrew Del Greco spoke with the company to see how they've been dealing with the aftermath.

The company was hit hard, with more than $2-million in damage. But as it turns out, things could've been a lot worse.

Early one morning this past July, Jefferson County firefighters came upon a hopeless scene - a warehouse engulfed in flames.

Tad Hegsted, president, Challenger Pallet & Supply: "The fire is still undetermined how it started. They weren't able to rule out anything, so it's gone down as suspicious in nature."

Now, four months later and no cause determined, the investigation is now closed.

Tad Hegsted, president, Challenger Pallet & Supply: "We'll never know until someone admits to it. Anything's possible. They couldn't rule out whether it was arson or electrical or any type of employee mishap."

Despite not knowing how the fire that caused $2-million in damage started, there is a silver lining and it has to do with the workers who felt their jobs were in jeopardy.

Tad Hegsted, president, Challenger Pallet & Supply: "We thought we'd lose 30 employees. We were able to maintain all our employees, a percentage of them were dispatched out for the last 90 days to other locations."

Challenger is one of the largest pallet and supply companies in the Intermountain Northwest. Four months ago, the company thought business would suffer. But that was another instinct that turned out to be wrong.

Tad Hegsted, president, Challenger Pallet & Supply: "We're working out of current buildings that were saved from the fire, plus our operations in Salt Lake City and Three Forks, Montana have kept our business going and we haven't missed customers' orders at all."

The company is putting a sprinkler system in their new structure as well as into the existing buildings in hopes that this will never happen again.