By Nancy Huddleston, Correspondent

SAVAGE - In a matter of minutes, fire destroyed nearly everything that the Heise family has built over the years at Thoroughbred Carpets in the western part of Savage.

A column of thick, black smoke could be seen for miles Tuesday afternoon as it hung above the store located at 8754 County Road 101 near the intersection of Highway 13. Up and down Boone Avenue and the frontage road, people stopped by to look, take pictures and wonder what happened.

Owners Mike and Jenny Heise hugged family members and employees in the parking lot of Stocker Excavating as they watched firefighters work to save their business. The next day, they were working out of their detached garage building next door to the store and vowing to keep their business open.

Jenny was carrying two cell phones – hers and husband Mike’s – and one or the other was going off every few minutes. “We will rebuild here – we own the property and the building is, or was, paid for,” she said. “There’s no reason not to stay here.”

But she asks for patience from customers and others as the family works through the process of rebuilding. Right now, without phone service, they are asking for general calls to be directed to daughter Alli Heise’s cell phone (952-292-5084). Installation and carpet calls can be made to son J. Michael Heise’s cell phone (952-245-4387) or to the Deerwood, Minn. store location (218-534-5454).

“We are not out of business; we are going to reopen, it will just be a process,” Jenny said, “We’ve got offers of warehouse space and our suppliers are calling and telling us they’ll do whatever it takes to help us.”

Thoroughbred Carpets has been a mainstay in Savage since the early 1980s and the owners plan to keep it that way. In fact, it’s the quintessential “small-town” qualities of the city that Jenny said will keep them in Savage.

“We’re a family-owned business,” Jenny said, “We built this place from the ground up.“And honestly, we are blessed. Friends and the businesses around here are calling and offering to do anything to help us,” she continued. “It could be so much worse, but it’s not. We all got out, we’re all healthy and this too will pass. We don’t know why this happened, but no one was hurt and we are grateful for that.”

As small-business owners, Jenny said their employees are just like family. They have 10 to 12 employees and large number of installers who work as subcontractors for Thoroughbred. In fact, Jenny noted, many of the installers are firefighters from other cities, so they’ve all been around seeing what they can do to help out.

“What’s hard for us is that all of our employees are family and knowing so many people depend on us,” she said, explaining that while full-time employees can collect unemployment while they’re out of work, the installers cannot because they work independently.

“We hope the community can hang with us while we try and get reorganized,” Jenny added. “We are grateful that all we lost were things that can be replaced. But because we’re a small business, many people’s lives are impacted by this.”

Alli said they are making sure that orders placed are filled and jobs that are scheduled go on as planned. Although all the stock was lost in the fire, suppliers are offering to restock Thoroughbred as soon as possible. As well, they have a store in Deerwood, Minn. that they can draw from for supplies.

Firefighters worked hard to protect the office area from further damage and Alli said those files have been moved into the garage. A computer company is looking at the hard drives of computers to salvage other important information.

As she looked over the damage the day after the fire, Alli was still stunned by the turn of events. “I was just sick to my stomach and in disbelief that this really happened,” she said.

$1 million in damage

Savage Fire Chief Joel McColl said the fire started in one warehouse at the south end of the building and quickly filled a second warehouse and showroom with smoke. All three buildings were attached and separated by interior walls.

Alli, Mike and employee Carol Carlson plus a customer were in the store at the time the fire started.

“Carol saw the smoke and came up and told Dad,” Alli said, “He went back and came right back telling us to call 911 and get out of the building.”

McColl estimates the damage is at least $1 million - $750,000 to the structure and $250,000 for the contents. And while he knows where the fire started, he doesn’t know the exact cause. Everything at the fire scene froze up immediately, which hampered the initial investigation.

“We’ll have to get in there during the daylight hours and dig things out to put things together about the cause,” McColl said.

The state fire marshal arrived on the scene after it took eight fire departments 90 minutes to bring the blaze under control. He was back on the scene Wednesday morning, but still hadn’t determined a cause.

McColl said it could be days before inspectors have the cause pinpointed due to the fact that the warehouse building has collapsed and the frigid conditions.

Mark Roberts of Eagle Creek Gallery, which is located on Boone Avenue just behind the carpet store, said an employee of his business noticed the fire when a back warehouse garage door opened up. He made other employees aware of what he’d seen and while someone called 911, Roberts ran across the street to see if he could help.“I went over to make sure everyone was OK and to see if they needed help,” Roberts said. “By that time everyone was out of the building.”

McColl said his department was dispatched at 12:25 p.m. Upon receiving the page about the fully-engulfed fire, he asked for mutual aid from Shakopee, Prior Lake, Burnsville and the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community (SMSC) fire departments.

And about an hour after being on the scene, more mutual aid was requested from fire departments in Eden Prairie, Bloomington and Jordan.

“After last week’s snowstorm the area fire chiefs decided if any of us had a fire, we’d immediately dispatch mutual aid,” McColl explained, “That’s because we’ve got a lot of high snow banks in all of our communities and fire hydrants have not been dug out yet.”

As well, the bitter cold temperatures are hard on equipment and personnel, McColl said, so replenishing manpower and equipment is vital to successfully putting out a fire.

One Savage firefighter, Larry Haugh, was injured during the fire.

McColl said Haugh’s face piece malfunctioned causing him to breathe in smoke during the initial interior attack of the fire. “He took in a large amount of smoke, so as a precautionary measure we took him into the hospital,” McColl said.

Haugh was treated and released from Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis Tuesday night.

In addition to fighting the fire in winter conditions, McColl said the materials inside the warehouse were another concern.

“Carpeting, carpet padding and wood flooring are stored in the warehouse from the floor to the ceiling,” McColl said, “So there was a tremendous amount of fire fuel.”

In addition to containing the fire to the warehouse, firefighters worked hard to keep the fire away from the office area.

“We know that administrative data is extremely important to a business, so we worked hard to salvage that area as best we could so that they could retain their business records,” he said.

McColl said the two warehouse areas were a total loss and there was heavy smoke and water damage to the showroom and some smoke and water damage to the office area.

Jenny said the family can’t thank all firefighters enough.

“They risked their lives and this is just carpeting and things,” she said.