By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

Several Grand Bahama businesses lost inventory and equipment after fire a Monday evening fire engulfed the building that housed D’s Car Rental, Fast Forward Freight Logistics and Dove 103.7FM.

Romal Russell, owner of Fast Forward Freight Logistics, said customer packages were damaged directly by the fire while others were impacted by the smoke and efforts to contain the blaze. “We sustained some damages to packages,” he explained.

“Fortunately, the fire was contained to one of our offices and that is where the damage was most concentrated. But because of heat and smoke and, obviously, water from the fire truck, we did sustain damage to some of our packages, but not a total loss.”

Mr Russell confirmed that the building was insured but the packages were not. “There is some level of insurance,” he said. “Obviously, we are renting. The building is injured, content, no.” He added that his team will assess the value of the damaged packages and issue reimbursements to consumers.

The Fast Forward Freight Logistics chief said that while he is still determining whether to relocate the business or make temporary arrangements until repairs have been completed, he intends to resume operations in short order.

“The plan for now is to assess, to spend the rest of the day assessing the real extent of the damages,” Mr Russell added. “We have not yet decided on a plan. We are considering options, but nothing concrete about whether we’ll continue to operate at this location, or whether we will be finding temporary lodging while we make the necessary repairs.

“For all intents and purposes, after the day we expect to be up and running; business as usual, whatever that may may look like in the immediate future.” While investigations into the cause of the fire are still underway, Mr Russell confirmed to Tribune Business that it was not arson.

“We don’t want to pre-empt the investigation,” he said. “They have provided us with some preliminary findings, which I don’t want to share without it being concrete, but we certainly are able to confirm that there was no foul play.”

Darren Cooper, host of Make it Make Sense on Dove 103.7FM, said the fire damaged the equipment used to broadcast his show for the radio station. He is also trying to assess the extent of the losses.

“Everything I use for the show that I do at my location, they are all completely damaged,” he said. “We are now trying to understand the complete loss and then we can go from there. No figure has been put together as yet.”

Mr Cooper has not yet decided whether to continue operating from the damaged building but plans to discuss future arrangements with his team. “I have not given anything any consideration as yet, just trying to pick through the pieces and regroup,” said Mr Cooper. “I’ll speak to my team tomorrow, and we’ll plan the way forward from there. Theres a lot to take into consideration.”