Washington Auto Glass Shop Owner Remains Optimistic After Fire, Loss of Facility
June 30, 2010

Less than a week after a fire that destroyed a large part of his auto glass business, Brent Larson, who co-owns a Novus Auto Glass franchise in Sequim, Wash., with his wife, Laraine, remains upbeat.

“You kind of roll with the punches,” he says. “I have a house to go home to, and it didn’t spread to the other nearby facilities in the industrial park in which we're located at all.”

Larson’s facility, which he was leasing, caught fire last Thursday after he had left for the evening. Half of it the building was destroyed, and the rest of it endured smoke damage.

“I was working on [an] old car, doing some welding,” he says. “I thought it was done and obviously there was a spark that smoldered for two, or two and a half hours.”

Fortunately, the local fire department responded quickly, Larson says.

“The firefighters got there pretty quickly, but it was fully involved,” he says. “Another 10-15 minutes later it would have been a whole lot worse.”

All of the glass the business had on-hand, along with two vehicles, including Larson's own classic 1966 Econoline pick-up truck, which was scheduled to be in a car show this weekend, was destroyed.

Larson also had two customers’ vehicles in which he was installing classic windshields in the shop, but both survived and only endured smoke damage.

“I was more worried about the customers’ cars than mine,” he says.

As he works to find a new facility, Larson says the business is still able to do some work.

“My main mobile van is intact with a full set of tools, and there’s a neighboring shop in the same complex that does bedliners, and they’re actually letting us use one of their bays,” he says.

Larson had been in the facility for two years, and has been in the industry for more than 20 years.

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