Dealing with Fire –


A TPI Member’s Perspective TPI member Carolina Green Corporation (CGC), Indian Trail, NC, suffered an extensive fire January 11, 2018. Turf News talked with CGC co-owner and President Chad Price and his wife Kerry, co-owner and CEO, about their experiences in the aftermath to offer some insight on what they learned from it.


Te fire was in a building that was built in 1996. It was one of several buildings on the property and was the main maintenance building and used for some storage of tools and equipment. It was the sod farm office and housed bathrooms. It was where crew members came for assignments and turned in paperwork. It was also the primary place for crew meetings.


Te fire started between 8:00 and 9:00 in the morning. An employee was using an acetylene torch to do some welding on a trailer. An open bucket of oil had been inadvertently left in the area. As he was welding, he didn’t notice that a spark from the torch had landed in the bucket. By the time it was noticed, the fire was climbing the wall and moved quickly out of control. It turned out that the original building insulation on the wall was flammable. Fortunately, no one was injured. Another positive was the time of year. Crews were available for cleanup and working on the building that wouldn’t have been in the busy season.


Chad said, “My biggest challenge was figuring out, now what do we do? For Kerry it was dealing with all the insurance adjusters.” He added, “I decided that I wanted to turn this into an opportunity. No matter how well you are insured, not everything is covered. Tere is time spent that is not covered and certain equipment that is irreplaceable. Tere are also things that you don’t miss for some time and they didn’t get on our lists.”


As part of the desire to turn the disaster into an opportunity, Chad enlisted the input of many people. Teir two sons and daughter, nieces, nephews, and other family members that were, or had been working in the business, and their other employees. Tey discussed the company’s overall status and long-range plans. What might things look like twenty years down the road? Chad says, “Te observations and points they made were very helpful. I was impressed by all the good ideas. It really helped me change some of my initial thoughts on what we should do.”


Tey worked with four different insurance adjusters: one on the building, one on large items, one on small items, and another on other aspects of the loss. Kerry said, “For the most part, the adjusters were great to work with, but sometimes one or two were not as helpful as the others. Our insurance agent has been great.” She added, “It helps if you get an understanding upfront of what they want and the form they want it in.”


Chad’s initial thoughts were to get the building back up as soon as possible. He now says, “It was a good thing that the


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adjustment process took so long. It gave us more time to think about what would serve us best down the road. We were able to reevaluate our situation and make improvements.” He added, “We were able to make a better building to suit our future needs and put into place more safety features. We are building a structure almost twice the size.”


Some of the lessons learned include better recordkeeping and back up of critical records. He says, “All of our paperwork on the machinery was lost.” Tey spent a lot of time photographing everything as they were cleaning up, which was good, but they did not keep as good track of the time spent on some of those tasks as they might have. Tey have made changes in safety and housekeeping. Tey installed non-flammable insulation. Tey will keep better records and back them up.


Kerry reports that the total loss is valued at about $180,000. While not all the paperwork or the settlement are yet complete, it looks like they will receive abut $120,000 in the final insurance settlement. She commented, “Make sure that you insure what you need to.”


At 9:03 a.m. the CGC maintenance building was completely engulfed in flames. Photo by Chad Price


By April 4 the replacement building is nearing completion. Improvements have been made to better support the business going forward. While not all the loss is recouped, changes can save money down the road. Photo by Chad Price


Steve Trusty is co-editor of Turf News. TPI Turf News May/J2 June 2018


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