CHARLESTON, AR — A fire that burned the main assembly building of a wooden pallet plant in Charleston wasn’t enough for the factory to end its operation of more than six decades, the Associated Press reports. “Our immediate goal is to get back up to full production,” said Matt White, vice president of sales and operations for the Medlock Forest Products facility. “We’ve had people who have worked here for years and they are counting on us for a job.”

The Southwest Times Record reported the main assembly building destroyed by last Tuesday’s fire contained machinery, tools and about 4,000 wooden pallets. All those items also were lost in the blaze.

The Medlock Forest Products plant in Charleston employs about 25 people, some of whom are on clean-up duty. Others have been temporarily reassigned to Medlock’s plant in Fort Smith.

The Charleston site had been idle for several months because of the slow economy but returned to production shortly before the fire, which officials say appears to have been electrical in origin.

Firefighters were able to keep the blaze from spreading to Medlock’s milling operation and company office. The business is looking for a vacant building in Charleston that can serve as an assembly facility until rebuilding is complete.

Fort Smith-based General Pallets Inc. owns the plant. General Pallets also owns William’s Wood Products in Fort Smith and Ozark Wood Products in Goodman, MO.

Charleston Mayor Sherman Hiatt said the Medlock plant, which opened during World War II assembling wooden ammunition boxes, is entwined in the city’s history.

“I worked at the plant in the summers, as well as many of the youths around here,” Hiatt said.

The assembly plant burned four days after a similar fire at Pine Moore Shavings, a wood chip manufacturer in Waldron about 45 miles away. That building was also gutted.