Bill Tarnasky may have lost an estimated $875,000 worth of vehicles, equipment and structure during Tuesday night’s storage building fire, but that isn’t breaking his spirit.
“We will recover and worse things could happen,” he said about the fire on his property at 5111 W. Prairie Ave., which destroyed the 50-by-150-foot Quonset hut and all of the contents inside.
“When you look at all the devastation in life now, there’s no long-term consequences with this except maybe financial. The way I look at it, there was a lot of messy equipment in there that I don’t have to take to the dump now.”
There were also not-so-messy items inside including two boats, a tractor, bailer, swather, trailer, tools and other property.
Tarnasky said he has insurance. A hired hand, not Tarnasky, lives at the property.
Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Warren Merritt said it’s believed the fire started when the hired hand used a chop saw to cut a pipe.