David Quinn was in Iowa last year when his livelihood was destroyed.
Quinn and his family were away at a family reunion when an electrical fire ripped through the Falls Church home of Quinn’s Auction Galleries, at 431 N. Maple Ave., on Sunday, July 1, 2001, gutting the two-story building.
Firefighters from Arlington County were joined by personnel from Alexandria, Fairfax and the Falls Church Volunteer Fire Department as they battled the three-alarm blaze. In the end, the fire was extinguished after two days, but left some half a dozen businesses homeless.
Last week, David Quinn held an official grand opening for Quinn’s Auction Galleries, although auctions have been going on at the site since January. But the reopening was not like any other auction at the gallery – the $3,000 raised was split between the Arlington department, the Falls Church Volunteer Department and the Arlington Civic Federation 911 Scholarship Fund.
Quinn’s was a family business, managed by David Quinn and owned by his father, Paul, and the home of their auction house was becoming a kind of one-stop shop for antiques, with furniture, antiques and art restorers sharing space with the auction house. With the mid-summer blaze, most were left homeless, with little chance of finding a new home before winter.
<b>INITIAL SPECULATION</b> about the source of the fire focused on chemicals used in restoration. The truth, Paul Quinn said, was that there was just a lot of kindling in the building that weekend. Quinn’s Auction Galleries had just gotten in a load of pressboard desks, the remnants of a failed dotcom, he said.
Electrical problems sparked the fire. But with desks stacked floor to ceiling, the fire had lots of kindling – and with no sprinklers in the 50-year-old building, nothing stood in the way of the blaze until firefighters showed up.
Not all of the damage was from fire. Doug McKay, a painter and art restorer, found his offices flooded with water.
"I tell people, Dave had a fire, I had a flood," he said.
Tony Clark, a silver appraiser renting space from the Quinns, watched his office suffer fire and water damage. "They were sitting on a ladder three stories up, shooting water through my window," he recalled. "I watched a library that had taken me years to collect go up in flames."
The Quinn family arrived at the scene as the fire was brought under control, and Paul Quinn immediately posed a question to his son.
"I said to David, ‘What do you want to do? We can polish our resumes, or we can make this work,’" he said.
Even as he watched the auction house burn, Quinn knew the answer. "You can do auctions anywhere," he said last summer. "We’ll try to keep going."
<b>THEIR DECISION,</b> to set up a tent on Broad Street for summer auctions, may well have saved the business. "Their clientele knew they were still going," said William Tattersall, a Falls Church attorney and a self-described auction regular at Quinn’s.
"I’ve had a fire in my home, and in my business. I know the devastation of losing everything you have," Tattersall said. "They never gave up hope. I wouldn’t have bet $5, but they did it."
The Quinns moved operations the day after the fire – none too soon for Paul Quinn, and for customers. "By Monday morning, we were in recovery mode," he said. "People were making deliveries at 10 a.m. while the fire people were still hosing things down. By Thursday, the city had found us recovery space."
City officials waived licensing fees for the auction tent, and helped the Quinns and other businesses from the warehouse find temporary space. Such assistance is the standard for Falls Church said Steve Rogers, vice-mayor of the city.
"It’s the norm so far, because we’ve never had a business destroyed by fire in my time," he said.
But it is also the standard for the city’s small town attitude said David Snyder, Falls Church council member, and a member of the volunteer fire department.
Snyder was one of the firefighters at the warehouse, and said the fire ended up with a silver lining. "It was one of the worst days in recent history. We’re very much a small town, and a loss is a loss to everybody," he said. "But out of that, there has arisen something that’s much better for customers and the city."
<b>FOUR WEEKS AFTER</b> the fire, the Quinns held their first auction in the tent, and they continued outdoor sales until November. By then, their old home was almost back.
The warehouse, like many of its neighbors, is owned by L.F. Jennings, Inc., a Falls Church based developer. After the fire, Paul Quinn said, he told Jennings owner Ken Jennings he wanted to get back into the Maple Avenue warehouse.
Jennings representatives let the Quinns design their renovated home, a luxury afforded only by the fire, Quinn said. "That’s something we could never have had as a small business," he said.
Reconstruction was slightly delayed, as Falls Church and the Arlington fire department sought increased fire protection at the site. "The city was eager to do what it could for permits," said John Baker, project manager of the reconstruction. "The Arlington Fire Department it was all up to code."
Design and material delays meant construction couldn’t begin until October, but Baker said he and superintendent Bill Barry were pushing workers to finish the project. "Both the Jennings brothers can look out their windows and see how things are proceeding," he said, which kept construction on a short lease.
But there was little to worry about. "Our timeframe was from mid-October to Jan. 1," Baker said. "We got it in by Jan. 5."
At that point, the Quinns moved back in, and held their first auction on Jan. 9. "We had no money left," Paul Quinn said. "We had to start generating money."
<b>LAST WEEK,</b> there were few signs of the fire. Scorch marks flare above a rear window, but otherwise the building is rebuilt. Paul Quinn and his younger son Matt put the finishing touches on the galleries before the fundraiser. Overhead, banks of sprinklers sat, inactive, waiting.
"That’s the first thing I look for, sprinklers and exits," said Byron Dixon, an Arlington County firefighter and paramedic, and a 14-year veteran of the department.
Dixon, working out of nearby Fire Station No. 6, attended the fundraiser on Friday along with others from Station 6, representing the department. As they stood in the room, employees and customers occasionally stopped by, thanking them for saving the business.
He was also on hand last summer.
"It was definitely not routine, based just on the size of the building," he said. That, combined with the chemicals, the desks and the lack of sprinklers, meant a real task for firefighters.
It’s great that Quinns wanted to give back, Dixon said, although the money wouldn’t really go to the Fire Department: "Your tax money pays for that." Instead, the department would pass the $1,016 the Quinns raised on to other causes, charities like Aluminum Cans for Burned Children.
He was even happier about the contribution to the 911 Scholarship Fund. The fund, established by the Arlington Civic Federation, currently provides five $1,000 scholarships to the children of Arlington firefighters, police and sheriff’s officers.
As a father, Dixon said that meant a lot to him. "My boy, he’s 5. Anything helps," he said. "I’m not depending on it, but I am setting money aside for college."
The $1,021 that the Falls Church department would get was also a welcome donation, said council member Snyder. "The beauty is, it goes right into purchases of equipment," he said.
<b>BEAUTY LAY ELSEWHERE</b> for Paul Quinn last week. As he auctioned off items to benefit local firefighters, he reflected on what he’d been through in the last year.
"It’s really very profound to see firefighters on a hot July afternoon pumping water on a fire that won’t go out," he said.
After the disaster, the Quinns were helped by their city, their neighbors and their customers, and pulled together as a family, his son Matt said. "I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through it, but what came out is amazing."