A fire on Sunday afternoon destroyed Gray’s Transfer Ltd., a business in Reston. A pile of rubble is what greets owner Kim Gray when he steps out of his home, just yards from the business. The was not involved in the fire.
“It’s a shock. It represented a lot of years of work,” he says. “We’ve been in business over 50 years.”
He explained that Gray’s Transfer closed recently due to the loss of his brother just before Christmas last year. “We had to shut the business down. So, the shop had been up for sale since January,” he tells.
The wind helped protect Gray’s home, located just yards south of the business shop where fire broke out first. Firefighters prevented the blaze from involving surrounding dead grass and shrubbery.
“I came out to get something out of the deepfreeze.” It was a timely moment. “Outside, you couldn’t tell anything, but as soon as I walked in (to the shop), there was the fire.”
That was about 1:30 in the afternoon. The police and fire marshal attended the scene.
His business was insured and Gray was expecting an insurance agent on Monday. “I hope it was adequate, I don’t know.”
The cause of the blaze, he says: “They think it was electrical. And these old buildings, once it gets started, they just go so quickly.”
“All the tools, anything to do with the shop was all burned,” says Gray.
The Gray’s Transfer business in Reston was an all-round service. “Years ago, we did haul grain. But we hauled groceries, parts for agriculture, just about anything and everything.”
