SCAMP FIRE

[Ross Wade]

Family business destroyed:

BACKUS, Minn. (AP) - A fire has destroyed a family owned trailer
manufacturing facility in this northern Minnesota town.

Firefighters called to the Eveland's Inc. plant on Highway 371
shortly after 6 p.m. Friday saw the building completely engulfed,
according to Cass County Sheriff's Office.

An explosion was reported soon after the fire started, but no one was
injured. Backus Fire Chief Karl Flier said a secretary was the only
person working at the plant at the time.

Firefighters from a dozen area fire departments were called to the
scene and fought the fire for more than seven hours.

Eveland's Inc., which manufactures the Scamp campers, has about 45
employees. The company has been owned by several members of the
Eveland family in Backus since 1971.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

For more info:
http://www.backusmn.com/scamp_tailers.htm

Our hearts and prayers go out to the Eveland Family and employees.

Ross and Carla

[rooster]

Well, let us all hope the Eveland family along with their employees put Humpty Dumpty (Scamp, Inc.) back together again and get those people back working again.

Jim, ,

[mwatters]

The folks on the fiberglassRV group have been following this story rather closely (for obvious reasons).

One of the more positive things I've seen reported is that the owner does plan to rebuild and plans on continuing to pay current employees for 6 months or more.

The big question we haven't gotten the answer to is: What about the molds? If the original molds are all destroyed - it's gonna be rough to continue with the same-old trailer.

mkw

[asianflava]

The big question we haven't gotten the answer to is: What about the molds? If the original molds are all destroyed - it's gonna be rough to continue with the same-old trailer.

Can't you pop a mold off an existing trailer? You can use the trailer as the plug. It won't be an exact replica of the original maybe a few thousandths off but it should be close enough.

[Ross Wade]

What I have heard, may be wrong...but I'm gonna tell it anyway, The Eveland Family started the camper business may years ago. The two brothers that started this company parted ways, in a heated way. There were issues about what to do with the company. So they decided that each would take a set of molds. One brother formed the Scamp company and the other formed the Casita company.

Just what I have heard over the years.

Ross

[Chris C]

Just an update: Someone on the Casita Forum called yesterday and the offices of the Casita company were unharmed.............but the factory facilities were a total loss. It's really going to be hard for them to get back up and running very quickly. I sure hope they had good insurance. I used to own a manufacturing facility and my heart really goes out to them.

[mwatters]

Scamp/Casita split: That's pretty much the story I've heard as well. Apparently right after the split the two were located across the street from each other. Casita is now in TX however.

Of course - Scamp itself got it's start as one of many (the only apparent survivor) companies that bought rights and molds from the guy that came out with the Boler in Canada. To this day - people with Bolers (and the related spin-offs) were able to go to Scamp for compatable repair parts.

I'm personally kinda hoping they take advantage of this incident to do a modest re-design of their trailers (which haven't been significantly changed since the early 70's). Personally all I'd really ask for is to stretch them by a foot or so in the rear to make for a larger bed. The current rear beds are only 48" wide max. Take that big curving rear into account and that's kinda skinny. I'd like that to be stretched to a 60" bed (queen width). That's all it'd take to make -me- happy.

mkw