Knight Transportation headquarters saved from fire
The Phoenix, Ariz. headquarters of trucking firm Knight Transportation Inc. were saved Friday by the quick action of local fire officials.
The nearly 130 employees of the trucking firm returned to work Monday to find that their headquarters saturated with the smell of smoke and suffering from some minor water damage, but little else. Burned debris and damaged trucks surrounded the building, but firefighters had managed to keep the massive pallet fire, which started in a nearby building on Friday evening, from reaching the firm's office building. Most of the same employees had been forced to evacuate their offices on Friday shortly after the fire started.
Two warehouses were destroyed in the fire, but the office building and a nearby pool-chemical warehouse were spared.
The destroyed warehouses were being rented to Dallas-based Greatwide Logistics Services, which lost about 250,000 pallets and 36 truck trailers in the fire. Estimates of the damage, according to fire officials, were in the millions of dollars. Knight was leasing one of the buildings to Greatwide, while the other was being rented from Roseville, Calif.-based DF Properties.
Knight, which reported 2006 sales of nearly $670 million, specializes in short- and medium-haul contracts. The firm's fleet comprises about 3,700 tractors and 8,800 trailers, including more than 600 refrigerated trailers. The company's services include dedicated contract carriage, in which drivers and equipment are assigned to a customer long-term.