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Puffenbarger sugar camp lost to fire
BY JAMES JACENICH • STAFF WRITER
 | | Ivan Puffenbarger (inset) said the fire that destroyed his sugar camp crystallized the syrup stored in containers in the shack. (Recorder photo by James Jacenich) |
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HIGHTOWN - "It took 50 years to put that together, 50 minutes to lose it," Ivan Puffenbarger said.
Puffenbarger's Sugar Orchard, a mainstay of the Highland County maple industry for half a century, is now a pile of cinders, twisted metal and ashes after being consumed by fire Tuesday night.
"If I was to guess, I'd say it was an electrical fire," Puffenbarger said from his farmhouse kitchen in Hightown Wednesday morning.
He had turned the sugar camp cooker off for the night before to going to bed Tuesday. The Puffenbargers usually turn in before 9 p.m. There was nothing left on that could have started the blaze, he said.
Neighbors Christy and Richie Hicks and their children, Burgundy and Clay, were returning from a basketball game around 9 p.m. when Burgundy spotted a fire on the Puffenbarger property. "It looks like they are burning brush," she said.
 | | Left, Puffenbarger's sugar camp was reduced to rubble by fire Tuesday night. Right, the sugar camp, as seen two years ago, was a revered icon on the Maple Festival sugar camp tour. (Recorder photos by James Jacenich) |
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Her father slammed on the brakes. No one would be burning brush on a cold and windy winter night.
Christy ran up to the Puffenbarger house. Sis Puffenbarger described Christy appearing at her door, out of breath and excited.
"Your sugar camp is on fire," Christy told her.
Ivan jumped out of bed, still in his paja- mas, and ran out into the night. He was determined to save what he could of his lifetime investment.
He took a deep breath and plunged into the smoke-filled building. He jumped in the cab of one of his trucks and turned on the engine. It would take a few minutes before the air-brakes warmed up enough for him to drive clear of the growing inferno. The heat from the fire singed his gray beard.
After he got the first truck out, he went back for the second.
Meanwhile, the fire department arrived. Trucks came from Blue Grass, McDowell and Monterey. The dry wooden planks of the sugar shack burned quickly, fanned by strong winds that accompanied a cold front moving through the area that night.
It had rained all day, which probably accounted for the fire not spreading into the bed of leaves surrounding the shack at the edge of the sugar orchard.
It was the determination of the volunteer firefighters that accounted for the fuel tanks abutting the shack not catching fire. Water was vigorously applied to the tanks to keep them cool as the tinder-dry wooden outbuilding burned to the ground.
"It was a big ball of fire," said Puffenbarger. "It burnt everything."
He sat back in his chair in the corner of the kitchen, visibly tired, his eyes half-closed. He was dressed in typical farm attire: coveralls, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt. It was as if he had just come in from morning chores and this were any other day of the week. His voice was clear and unwavering as he described the devastation. "You're not going to be believe it when you see what that fire did," he said.
 | | Flames, fanned by gusts of wind, continue to devour the remnants of Ivan Puffenbarger's 50-year old sugar camp Wednesday morning, more than 12 hours after the fire began. |
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Puffenbarger estimated a minimum of $100,000 damage to the shack and his equipment. Insurance will cover some of it, but not all, Puffenbarger said. It will take at least a year to rebuild, if he does rebuild. One piece of equipment alone cost $27,000, Ivan said. He only had the best equipment in his camp. Puffenbarger pioneered a reverse osmosis process of extracting sugar water from maple trees in the 1970s. The process increased the percentage of sugar in the water, reducing processing time.
Several hundred gallons of syrup, part of the average 1,000 gallons the camp usually produces in any given year, crystallized in their tin containers. All of the syrup the Puffenbargers had ready to sell next weekend was still in the shack when it caught fire. Nothing remained of this season's hard work and inventory.
"We're getting too old to do this," said Sis. "It will be up to Doug (her son) to decide whether or not to rebuild."
She was seated at the back door entrance to the kitchen. She and Ivan are both bus drivers for Highland County Public Schools and she had just returned from her morning's route. Tears streaked her cheeks as she thought about the damage and the danger of the night before.
Doug was out feeding the cattle. He was visibly tired. What little sleep he got the night before he stole as he collapsed, fully-dressed, on a chair upon the porch in the few remaining hours before sunrise.
Life on the farm continues uninterrupted. A fire is a temporary setback for this rugged mountain family. They'll handle this crisis as they would any other - putting up a strong front while concealing hearts breaking under the weight of sudden and severe loss.
The thousands of visitors during the 50th annual maple festival over the next two March weekends would have helped the family financially for the rest of the year. Typically, the two weeks of Maple Festival provide the major syrup producers enough supplemental income to take care of the extra things needed around the farm in the coming year.
Several neighbors stood next to Sis, offering assistance, asking what they could do to help. A steady line of people came by the farm Wednesday morning to offer condolences and a helping hand. The phone rang constantly; as soon as Ivan put the receiver down, it would ring again. A neighbor arrived, with an offer to buy his sugar water. The offer was made respectfully, sincerely. The neighbor could process the sugar water at his own camp. Ivan said it would be a shame for the sugar water remaining in his century-old trees to go to waste.
In just a week, people will arrive for the Maple Festival, expecting to find the locally produced syrup. Typically, demand exceeds supply in Highland's annual signature event. Friendly competition among sugar producers turns to neighborly concern when misfortune visits any one of them.
"We're going to survive," Ivan said stoically. "We can still do doughnuts."
One of the many miracles of the fire was the survival of the nearby doughnut trailer. If the wind had been blowing toward it, it is likely the trailer would have been lost as well.
Ivan is grateful to all the firefighters and all the offers of help. He said firemen Garth Simmons and Junior Sweitzer didn't leave until 4 a.m. They were just two of the many volunteers who gave up their time and risked their lives to help their friends and neighbors.
Monterey fire chief Elmer Waybright was taken to Bath Community Hospital suffering from smoke inhalation. He was expected to be released Wednesday. He was the only person reported injured in the fire, another miracle considering the wind, the cold, the night and the potentially deadly combination of fire, dry wood, gas and diesel that could have made things much worse.
Ivan saved his fuel truck. Firefighters saved a tank containing 6,000 gallons of fuel nearby. A one-thousand gallon propane tank only yards away from the shack was undamaged by the flames. Their home was intact.
"Everybody did a fantastic job of helping," said Ivan. "But it was so far gone, nobody could have saved it."
Highland chamber of commerce director Carolyn Pohowsky was deeply concerned about the Puffenbargers when she learned of the fire Wednesday morning. "Obviously Ivan and Sis are two of our major maple producers and have been for 50 years, ever since this festival started. They will be sorely missed this year. It's a real loss."
She visited the couple Wednesday and said they were still shaken. "Ivan is one of our old timers," she said. "They have both been incredibly supportive of the maple festival all these years. There was even a lot of incredible memorabilia in that barn, which I assume has now all been lost."
Pohowsky said now that the barn is gone, it's also visually shocking to enter up the driveway to the place.
"Any time you lose a maple producer, especially one that's so much a part of this event, it is really hard," she said. "But to lose it in this way is just devastating."
She said plans will be made to re-direct traffic during the festival and update visitor information over the next two weeks as needed.
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