Fire has caused more than £1m worth of damage at EC Forest Products Ltd near Lewes, East Sussex, but the company is continuing to trade with help from its French suppliers.
The business, which specialises in home-grown and European oak for the joinery market, lost a recently modernised mill, machinery, stock, lorries and forklifts and its office in the blaze.
Roger Cooper, director, said: “It is pretty devastating and we are not recovering anything from it. We didn’t even have a pad and pen left to write anything down!”
However, the company is about to complete construction of a brand new building and new machinery will be installed as soon as possible.
Mr Cooper said: “The building was designed to help us expand – but now we will put a modern mill into it and build the business up from there.
“Although we have lost the main part of the company, we have taken the operation straight over to the sawmill in Normandy, France which helped us start up and is where the majority of our timber comes from. They will do our cut to size and joinery timbers which will be shipped in regularly to meet customer needs.
“We have been loyal to them and that has paid off 100% – they will help us until we are fully operational.”
