A fire blazed in a blacksmith shop near Muddy River on the mainland Tuesday evening.
Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department spokesperson Dave Berg said PVFD received a call around 4:50 p.m. on December 29 after someone reported seeing a fire on the mainland to the Petersburg Police.
Berg said volunteers asked over a VHF radio if anyone knew anything about a fire.
“Orie Bell on the M/V Lindy came back to me and said they had a fire in their blacksmith shop over there and that it was fully engulfed and everyone was accounted for, there were no injures,” Berg said.
Haley and Adam DesRosiers use the blacksmith shop to forge knives for their custom metal work business DesRosiers Knives.
Berg said after assessing the situation they realized the PVFD wouldn’t have been able to contain or put out the fire.
“By the time we could have gotten over there, taking caution for tides and nighttime conditions, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything,” Berg said.
The PVFD also responded to a chimney fire later that night near Hungerford Hill, and the resident had already extinguished the fire by the time volunteers arrived.
Within 24 hours of the DesRosiers fire, support has sprung from across the country from as far as North Carolina and Tennessee to New Mexico and Quebec. A Facebook user with a profile named G W Kearney started a group on the social media site entitled "DesRosiers Benefit" where more than 40 knife makers and other users are pledging blades and other materials to auction off in an effort to help the DesRosiers rebuild.
“I am completely without words to thank you all for this overwhelming support and generosity,” Haley DesRosiers posted in the group feed. “We know exactly how much time and expense goes into creating these blades/sheaths, what it takes to source and collect materials and tools. We are so humbled that you guys/gals would give like this. All we can say is thankyou so much.”
In a separate Facebook post, Adam DesRosiers wrote the fire completely destroyed their knife shop after quench oil, used to rapidly cool work pieces, caught fire.
“We do not know how long it will take, but we are planning to rebuild,” Adam wrote.
Sadly, the family’s two dogs had been asleep inside the shop and perished in the blaze.
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