GARFIELD — Hoping to rebuild, Mike Webb drove to Fort Smith and Joplin, Mo., Monday looking at wood-working equipment to replace what he lost in a fire Friday. Owner of Pro-Line Cabinets, Webb lost his shop and equipment in an early morning fire Friday.

The cabinet shop, a 2,950-square-foot metal building on Walnut Hill Road, was destroyed about 5:30 a.m. Friday. Firefighters from Northeast Benton County, Avoca, Pea Ridge and Little Flock extinguished the fire.

“When the first employee came to work, he noticed smoke in the shop. He opened the doors to let the smoke out. ... It must have been starving for air.

It caught up and took off. He tried to put it out with a fire extinguisher,” Webb said.

Fire marshal Will Hanna said a cause has not been determined, but appears to be electrical because it was a slow-growing fire which apparently smoldered overnight, filling the shop with smoke.

In addition to Webb, nine people depend on the cabinet shop for their livelihood. Many have worked for him for more than 10 years. “They’ve been with me a long time,” Webb said. “They’re really nervous right now.”

Webb, who’s been in business almost 21 years, builds custom cabinets, furniture, entertainment centers, vanities.

“We’ve been really busy the last six months to a year,” he said, adding that he’s looking to rent a building as soon as possible to open the shop again. Insurance personnel were on the scene Monday.

At one end of the building the raw materials - maple, birch and alder wood - were stacked.

In the center stood the equipment - saws, sanders, “anything you need to work on wood.” And at the other end, finished cabinets were stacked, ready to be delivered.

“We’ve had a lot of response from the community and church,” Webb, a member of First Baptist Church in Garfield, said, adding “they’ve been a real blessing.”

Other cabinet makers have called offering assistance.

“They’re not really competitors, they’re friends,” he said.

“Everyone wants to do something to help, but we can’t get in the building right now,” he said.

News, Pages 1 on 07/20/2011