BUSINESS BURNED

A fire burned down Gary McFarland’s Wimberley Workshop, which in addition to being a woodworking shop for 30 years also housed a recently relocated lawn mower repair business as well as served as a residence.

The fire occurred on Rhodes Lane directly across the street from the Wimberley Fire Department. Nobody was injured.

The emergency call for the fire came in around 12:20 a.m. but Wimberley firefighters had just been alerted themselves.

“One of our firefighters here actually heard a pop and he came outside,” Wimberley Fire Chief Carroll Czichos said. Even with the fast response, the building was quickly engulfed in flames.

There were two people and a dog inside, all of which escaped safely. They too heard the pop of the fire growing larger and were unable to extinguish it before exiting the building.

“They were doing lawn mower repair, but there was still a lot of lumber and woodworking dust through the shop,” Czichos said.

Czichos said he believes an electrical issue caused the fire. The building, tools and equipment were a total loss.

A GoFundMe account has been started to help raise money for the McFarland family at https://gofund.me/f527b055.

“The shop has helped and been home to many people around Wimberley over the years, and contained priceless amounts of equipment and tools, as well as tons of memories,” the GoFundMe page said. “This fundraiser is to try to help compensate for everything that was lost, although it’s impossible to replace, it is possible to help out as much as we can.”

There was exterior damage to two neighboring structures though Czichos described the damage as minor.

“It caught some exterior plywood on fire on the shopping center next to it, and I think it melted some paint on the outside of some of the storage buildings next door, but I don’t think any of it is very serious,” Czichos said.