If Monday's fire at the Murray Allied store was a lemon, a fire sale planned for Saturday will be the company's lemonade.
Allied will be open at 9 a.m. Saturday for a fire sale that promises "hot deals," despite the heavy smell of smoke, soot-stained walls and merchandise, and water-soaked carpet, said company spokesman Steve Brown.Firefighters now believe an electrical problem started the fire at about 7:15 p.m. Monday at 6400 S. State, which caused about $500,000 damage to the building. Brown said the company now estimates the loss at between $7 million and $8 million once the value of the damaged and destroyed merchandise is taken into account.
Phones at the store were ringing furiously Tuesday with calls coming from customers concerned about merchandise on layaway and employees wondering where and whether to report for work.
Customers aren't to worry, Brown said: Layaways will be moved to the Sandy Allied store for pickup, and the store's computer system and bookkeeping records were not damaged. "We did not lose any of our credit accounts. We're sorry, but bills will go out as usual."
Allied will keep all of the damaged merchandise at the Murray store for the fire sale, but the other stores in the chain will be on the bandwagon with their own fire sales Saturday.
Smoke was still rising from the building Monday night when Allied Development Co. owner Mark McGillis promised the store would be open by Saturday. The rush is due to the fact that the retail outlet does about 25 percent of its business between now and the end of the year, Brown said.
A gaping hole firefighters cut in the roof had been patched by noon Tuesday, and cleanup crews planned to "bomb" the building with deodorizing chemicals to freshen the air inside the store.
Not for sale Saturday will be a shipment of fire extinguishers that had just been put on display shelves when employees started seeing smoke billowing from the west end of the store.
Brown said employees began moving customers out of the store while other employees did combat with the growing fire by using the new fire extinguishers, which now lay spent amid burned and soggy boxes of shoes, cowboy boots and clothing.
The fire most extensively damaged a storage area that lined part of the front and the west end of the store. "That room is gone. It's now an outside wall," said Jann Bournstein.