Ben Oliver’s phone call to his wife Monday night was brief:
“Honey, there’s a fire at the range, I’ll be home late. I’ve got to go. The fire truck is here.”
Several hours and about 350,000 gallons of water later, the fire was out — but so was the building. Smoke and water damage caused a total loss to Lakes Trading Co., a gun shop and indoor range in Forest Lake.
Customers were inside the building at the time the fire erupted, but no one sustained injuries other than a Hugo firefighter who sprained his ankle.
The state fire marshal was investigating the fire Tuesday morning. Officials did not know what caused the fire but did not suspect foul play.
“Ben and his entire crew have worked tirelessly to make Lakes Trading the go-to business for firearms and training,” said Dustin Sanchez, a friend of the business. “I can recall on multiple occasions when I have reached out to Ben in need of parts or time on the range and he has always gone out of his way to accommodate me. I have no doubt that the firearms community will come together in the coming months to help Ben and his team rebuild, myself included.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Olivers did not know whether they planned to rebuild. Oliver announced in a Facebook post Monday night that the range was closed until further notice.
75 FIREFIGHTERS WERE ON SCENE
Five different fire departments — Forest Lake, Wyoming, Hugo, White Bear Lake and Lino Lakes — sent a total of 75 firefighters to the scene to help combat the the flames, which were shooting several feet into the air.
Crews were called to the scene around 8:30 p.m. Monday and remained there for several hours.
The wall at the end of the gun range was made of pieces of rubber — essentially ground up tires — to stop the bullets from leaving the building.
“One of the issues was dealing with that. Once rubber starts to burn, it’s like a tire fire,” Forest Lake Fire Chief Alan Newman said. Authorities said gun ammunition did not pose any problems battling the blaze.
Music Connections, a neighboring business that shared a building with Lakes Trading Co., suffered minor smoke and water damage. Charlie Ollmann, who founded Music Connections in 1981 with his wife, said he was worried the damage would be much worse when he saw the fire.
“How are we going to take care of our customers and clients if our place burns down?” Ollmann wondered during the fire, he said Tuesday. “When we built the building, that fire wall was really expensive. Now, I’m really glad for it.”
FRIENDS AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS PITCHED IN TO HELP
Ben Oliver had owned a portion of the building for several years. He originally bought it as an art gallery and frame shop, but later converted it into a gun shop, then added the range a few years later.
“This was his thing,” his wife Amy Oliver said. The couple has nine children, one of whom shoots competitively.
When Amy Oliver heard about the fire from her husband Monday night, she was hoping it was small and contained, as a different fire in the range had been years before.
But she drove to the range anyway, getting there just a few minutes after the fire had started. Already, flames had engulfed a portion of the building and were leaping several feet into the air, Oliver said.
They got home around 2 a.m. Tuesday with many of the firearms that had been inside the building. Friends and community members assisted them with cleaning the guns, working through the night and all day Tuesday.
Dan Knuth woke up at 4 a.m. Tuesday, read about the fire on Facebook, and drove down from Duluth to Forest Lake to help clean up inventory and salvage anything possible. He’d never been to the range before, but he was among a couple dozen people helping the family.
“It’s just sad to see a family business, that he’s grown from nothing, by himself, to have a hit like this,” Knuth said.