EVERETT. Wash. - Just hours after closing its doors for the night, the Doodlebug Sportz Paintball complex went up in flames Saturday.
What took 15 years for Don Cort to build went up in smoke in the matter of minutes.
Cort his family and staff spent the early morning hours pulling what they could from the charred remains of the building.
"We just got new lights inside. You could see the colors. A green field, the orange bunkers, now it's all kind of drowned together," said employee Brenden Beaver.
Ladder trucks and firefighters converged on the warehouse shortly after 2:30 a.m. as flames and smoke shot through the roof of the one-story warehouse located in the 3400 block of McDougal Avenue.
Firefighters feared the steel and wood structure could collapse at any moment.
Investigators focused on an air compressor storage area near a circuit box.
Doodlebugs Sportz Arena bills itself as the largest indoor paintball arena between Vancouver BC and Vancouver, Wash.
Nate Schroeder is a member of the nationally ranked DBS Kids paintball team, which trains at the facility.
"Definitely going to be tough for us to come back and find another place to play every week," he said.
The fire means referee Brenden Beaver has to look for a new job. He helped close up shop Friday night.
"Everything seemed normal. Everything seemed better than normal because we had been cleaning everything," he said.
The owner said the building is insured. He said this has been a devastating financial loss but he would like to rebuild.
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