ATHOL — A fire caused significant damage to the planer building of an Athol lumber mill Wednesday morning.

Colville, Wash.-based Vaagen Brothers Lumber leases the facility at 5400 Highway 54 from Merritt Brothers Lumber.

Jim Lyon, spokesman for Northern Lakes Fire District, which assisted during the incident in the Timberlake Fire Protection District, said it’s unclear exactly what ignited the fire.

"One of the folks working on the planer had cleaned it and broke for lunch," Lyon said. "He noticed the power went off in the office and, when he opened the door, there was fire and flames right there at the door."

There were no injuries.

"A rehabilitation unit is on scene to test people's conditions," Lyon said, adding that most of the company's employees were sent home as a result of the blaze.

Fire crews were called to the business at 10:30 a.m. Timberlake's station in Athol is just down the road from the mill.

"When crews arrived on scene, the building was about 50 percent involved," Lyon said.

Firefighters had the fire contained in about an hour, but were expected to be on scene into the night tending to hotspots under the metal that collapsed.

A heavy equipment operator was called upon to tear apart the rubble so the fire could be completely put out.

Lyon said a damage cost estimate had not been determined.

Dave Haney, a supervisor at Vaagen Brothers, said a crew will be back at work today and a plan for re-opening will be discussed.

"We've got other parts of the mill, so we'll get back up and running," he said. "We may close a couple days until we get our feet back underneath us. We won't know anything until we can get in and figure things out."

Haney said 21 employees work at the mill.

"Nobody got hurt, so we're grateful for that," he said.

Some lumber products nearby were destroyed but the main storage area adjacent to the planer facility was spared.

"Crews protected the storage building with finished products from the intense heat of the fire exposure, so that's a positive," Lyon said.

It was a three-alarm fire, meaning requests were made for any available engine from neighboring agencies that have mutual-aid agreements with Timberlake.

Kootenai County Fire and Rescue, Spirit Lake Fire and Selkirk Fire were other agencies that assisted. Ten engines responded.

Lyon said it was initially believed that two structures may have been on fire as smoke was seen coming out of the hopper that collects sawdust, but that was likely coming from the planer building through the system.

An investigation continues.