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Blaze damages former Bassett Furniture plant in Virginia

Company had sold building and no longer had inventory there

Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, November 21, 2011

Local TV station WDBJ-7 shot this video footage of a fire in a former Bassett plant, which the company sold earlier this year.

BASSETT, Va. — An early morning fire destroyed much of a former Bassett Furniture Inds. plant here, local fire officials reported.

Bassett had sold the building gin March to an organization that collects and distributes goods for various nonprofits and did not have any inventory in the building, said Jay Moore, a company spokesman.

The blaze was first reported at 1:30 a.m. Monday, according to Henry County Fire Marshall Rodney Howell. Fifteen area departments including Henry, Patrick and Franklin counties and the city of Martinsville and town of Rocky Mount responded to the call.

The fire was under control by about 7 a.m., and about one third of the 360,000-square-foot multi-story building was saved, Howell said.

Howell did not have a dollar value estimate on the damages to the building. He said there was some inventory in the saved portion of the building and expects there was some in the destroyed portion too. He said the loss "will be excessive, I am sure."

The building was built in the mid-1920s and was once used to manufacturer case goods and other wood furniture. Bassett stopped production there in 2001, Moore said.

Officials have started an investigation but did not have a cause of the fire this morning.

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