ROCKWOOD, Pa. (WJAC) — "They just pretty much follow us," said LJ Bowers, while standing among the remains of his family's sawmill.
On Saturday around 11 p.m., Bowers was driving around with friends when he saw smoke from the road. He said he immediately knew that the sawmill was on fire. Bower's Lumber Company has owned sawmills since the '40s, and Bowers says this isn't the first time one has gone up in flames.
"It's nothing new, because we had one farther back in the property, and pretty much it was the same thing. One mill in Sickville was pretty much an electrical fire, too," said Bowers.
Fire crews responded to the massive fire Saturday night and battled the flames until around 4:30 a.m. Fire officials say around 100 firefighters from several departments were up against the flames. However, just when they thought they were in the clear, the fire re-kindled around 9 a.m. Sunday.
"My father, he's pretty devastated, but there's nothing much we can do about it," said Bowers.
His father, Charles Bowers, owns the sawmill. LJ Bowers says he has been helping out and working at the sawmill his entire life. Firefighters returned Sunday morning to finally put an end to the devastation.
The flames claimed one sawmill and a new one that was being built right next to it. LJ Bowers said he was helping put the new structure together and had done some of the welding.
Firefighters don't have a cause yet for the fire, but LJ Bowers says he thinks it was electrical, based on what he saw.
"It was pretty much just going through the rafters back and forth. So that's what we're guessing, that it has to be electrical from the way it looked," he said.
Despite the loss, the Bowers family is ready to move forward.
"We're pretty much going to clean everything up and start from scratch. Just put new equipment in and go about it," said LJ Bowers.
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