Cleanup continues after part of Tyrone business destroyed by fire

TYRONE, Pa. (WJAC) -- The cleanup has begun at a garden center in Huntingdon County that caught fire Tuesday night.

Flames engulfed two buildings at Martin's Garden Center, which sits several miles outside Tyrone.

No one was injured, but it's a terrible loss for the business.

Cleaning up the debris is not an easy task and, for owner Daniel Martin, it's a tough sight to see.

"Step out of the house and you see this, I'm, like, 'Wow.' I come down here and the whole thing's engulfed,” Martin said. “I’m, like, 'Man, this has got to be a dream.' I mean, you're just totally helpless. There's nothing you can do."

Luckily, the majority of the garden center's products were unharmed by the fire.

"Just the retail office space and the storage, that was destroyed, but the trees, flowers -- all that is still good," Martin said.

Family and friends had their gloves on Wednesday and were hard at work.

Keith Peachey goes to the same church as the Martins and has known them for almost a decade.

He spent his day off from work helping out.

"Looks like there are some salvageable things here,” Peachey said. “Lots of charred remains and there's a lot to do."

Martin said the rebuilding is going to cost a lot of money.

"I haven't put numbers together yet, but probably $50,000-$100,000 range. And of course, two buildings were destroyed."

"It shows there's a lot of good community support here,” Peachey said. “They touched a lot of people’s lives. A lot of people do business here. And I think that shows on a day like this."

It's a busy time of year for the garden center and the owners hope to be up and running soon.

"We haven't really decided what we're doing as far as a total rebuild, but we're just right now doing some temporary things that we can operate, and then we're going to move forward from there," Martin said.

Martin says he hopes the garden center will be at least partially open for business by Saturday.

The fire marshal is still investigating what exactly caused the fire.

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