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Dana Nichols, of Enfield, looks for metal scrap while sorting through burned debris in Enfield, N.H., Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, on the footprint of Dick Chase's auto salvage shop that was destroyed by fire last Friday. Chase said he did not have fire insurance on the building or the attached office that was damaged, but left standing. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Valley News Photographs — James M. Patterson

Dick Chase, 78, right, talks with Lloyd Hackeman, of Enfield, left, as they clean up debris in Enfield, N.H., Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, from Chase's auto salvage shop that burned last Friday night. Hackeman, who brought his excavator to fill dumpsters with debris from the destroyed building, is one of many friends and community members, including a group of Enfield volunteer firefighters, that came out in the aftermath of the fire to clean up the site and reuild an office space that was damaged by smoke and water. "I wouldn't know what to do without them," said Chase of the fire department, of which he has been a member for 45 years. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Valley News — James M. Patterson

Chase's Auto Salvage employee Bryan Brouillard, middle, continues to fill junk cars with scrap as his co-worker Keith Arnesen, takes a break for a sandwich and Lloyd Hackeman, of Enfield, left, shovels debris from the fire that destroyed the salvage shop into a dumpster in Enfield, N.H., Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020. Arnesen said he lost over $7,000 in tools in the fire. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.

ENFIELD — As the sky dimmed to dark blue Tuesday evening, Lloyd Hackeman flicked a switch to turn on his excavator light and plunged the arm of the machine back into a pile of burned tires and charred wood.

It was Hackeman’s fourth day digging through the ruins of Chase’s Auto Salvage in Enfield, and he wasn’t alone.

In days since a fire tore through the family-owned business in Enfield on Friday night, around 20 people have come to sort through the rubble, many of them arriving at daybreak each day and staying through the early evening hours. They include employees, members of the tight-knit Enfield community and firefighters like Hackeman, an Enfield Fire Department lieutenant and fire ward. All are volunteering their time.

“We’re doing it for him,” Hackeman said Tuesday, of 78-year-old owner Dick Chase, a longtime Enfield resident and assistant chief of the fire department. “Dick’s been a good friend to all of us through the years.”

As members of the department, Chase and Hackeman were two of the first people to respond to the scene along Route 4A near Boys Camp Road Friday night. The blaze started just after 8 p.m. when some sparks from an exhaust system in a vehicle that was being worked on hit a flammable liquid, causing the fire and several explosions inside the work garage, according to a news release from the Enfield Fire Department.

The employee working on the car at the time of the fire was able to get out of the garage safely and crews from Enfield and neighboring towns stayed on the scene for five hours putting out the flames.

Part of the nearly 70-year-old business, where Chase dismantles used cars and sells them for parts and scrap metal, was destroyed in the fire. By Saturday morning, the 3,600-square-foot garage and all of the tools inside had been reduced to rubble, leaving behind a mass of blackened car parts and a burned-out bucket loader. The fire had reached the front office as well, wiping out the Chases’ computer system and documents and charring the interior walls, but it spared the back parking lot and its 2,000 cars. The family didn’t have fire insurance for the building, according to Chase.

At first the loss was staggering, said daughter Beth Chase, who works with her father operating the business. But the community came to their rescue. Over the next few days Chase worked with some of the family’s friends, like Hackeman and assistant fire chief John Pellerin, to clean up the remains, while other friends, such as Nicole Maxham set up a fundraiser and wrote flyers on ways to donate to the fire relief effort.

“Whenever we have needed their support (the Chase family) has been there, both in and out of work,” Maxham said in an email Tuesday. “That’s why we love them and want to help them out as much as possible.”

On Sunday a handful of community members began work on the office, replacing the blown-out windows, restoring the heat and repairing the smoke-stained walls. On Tuesday evening, as two men finished plastering the walls of the new office, Beth Chase stood in the middle of it all in shock.

“It feels so overwhelming. It’s a lot of time out of people’s days,” she said, adding that thanks to their help, she might be able to reopen the business as early as next week. “How do you pay that back?”

As she spoke, her phone buzzed with a text from an employee at an office retailer down the road: “Loading up now, leaving in 15.”

“I don’t even know what they’re bringing,” she said with a laugh, adding that it’s just the latest in a wave of donations from area businesses that have included everything from filing cabinets and desk chairs to pizzas for the volunteers.

The response from the community has been especially touching for her father, who was devastated after the blaze Friday night, Beth Chase said. Dick Chase’s feelings changed Sunday morning when he pulled into his business and found it so packed with friends and community members that it was hard to find a parking spot.

“I wouldn’t know what to do without them,” Dick Chase said.

The business was started by Chase’s father in 1954 and has been a staple in the community, though it was put on the market in 2018 with the note that Chase planned on retiring, according to the listing. The 19-acre property, which included the garage space as well as a parking lot for the used cars and has a salvage permit, was still listed as “active” on the seller’s website Wednesday morning.

It’s listed for $729,000 and was most recently assessed at $531,400 in November 2019.

Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.

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