RONAN – When some of the first responders arrived after Lake County Dispatch received multiple reports of smoke coming from the roof of S&S Sports south of Ronan on Monday afternoon, Sheriff Don Bell said the smoke was so black and so thick you couldn’t see across U.S. Highway 93.
Ronan Fire Chief Mark Clary, the first on the scene, quickly summoned additional help from volunteer fire departments in Polson, St. Ignatius, Arlee and Charlo.
The blaze, fanned by gusting March winds and fueled by gas and oil in some of the boats and ATVs inside, destroyed most of the 10,000-square-foot business.
The cause was not immediately known.
S&S is closed on Sundays and Mondays. Highway 93 was closed to one lane of traffic for part of the afternoon.
Jake Starkel, general manager of S&S, said there were only six privately owned units inside the shop, where it appeared the fire started.
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“Luckily, there were not a lot of customer units inside,” said Starkel, who received a call about the fire at 1:15 p.m. and rushed to the family-owned business.
He estimated S&S, which sells and services boats, personal watercraft, motorcycles, ATVs and snowmobiles, had 30 to 35 major pieces of inventory in the building.
“Probably 95 percent of it is a loss,” Starkel said. “There might be a couple we can salvage.”
Starkel said the business is insured.
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It appeared none of the dozens of units stored on the property surrounding the building, many of them boats, was damaged. Bell said that he, firefighters and deputies helped Starkel move nine ATVs that were parked next to the building away from danger.
“We took them out of gear and pushed them across the parking lot,” the sheriff said.
“We’re grateful for all the extra work they did to help save some stuff,” Starkel said. “We got as much away from the building as we could.”
Bell said gusting winds initially pushed the flames toward the north end of the building, which he said contained motorcycles, and then shifted and sent smoke billowing east across the busy highway.
The winds also blew ash into a field across the highway, and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Division of Fire was also summoned to make sure the structure fire on one side of the highway didn’t turn into a wildfire on the other side.
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"It was a hot fire in the middle part of the building,” Starkel said. “There’s just too many units with gas and oil in them there.”
The Arlee Fire Department sent a 6,000-gallon water tender that parked along Highway 93 and was connected to a Polson fire truck closer to the building. Then, smaller tenders carrying 2,000 to 4,000 gallons of water shuttled to the rural site, located between Mollman Pass Trail and Duck Road south of Ronan.
Dane Morigeau of the Arlee Fire Department said that after the original 6,000 gallons had been used, five more truckloads of water were transferred from the smaller water tenders into the Arlee tank to be pumped through the Polson truck into hoses, and more were on the way.
Bell said a state fire marshal was en route to the scene from Kalispell.
“No part of the building isn’t destroyed,” Bell said.
The Finley Point Fire Department was placed on standby to respond to fires in the Polson area, Bell said, because so many firefighters and equipment from Polson were helping Ronan fire crews at S&S.
Starkel said all computer data about boats and other units that were inside the building is backed up and stored at an offsite location, and S&S would be notifying any owners affected.
Even as firefighters continued fighting the blaze, Starkel said plans were to rebuild the business and “get going as soon as we can.”
There’s a second S&S Sports in Thompson Falls, he noted, and they would use that location to continue to do work.
Starkel also thanked the volunteer firefighters from across the county who responded.
“They’re doing everything they can do,” he said. “They’re working very hard.”