Yesterday afternoon, as our crew was preparing to head home, a fire broke out at Oshala Farm.
All our people and pets made it to safety, everything else did not. Within moments our entire dryer barn was engulfed in flames. The fire spread to our storage barn, our secondary dryer and our employee area, mechanic shop, and coolers.
The heroic local and regional firefighters came in fiercely with dozens of trucks and helicopters and saved what they could and prevented the fire from spreading to more buildings or to neighboring properties. Unfortunately, even with their best efforts, we lost nearly everything we’ve built over the last 13 years here at the farm. The fire was just too large and the hot to stop it.
We've lost all of our inventory, hundreds of thousands of pounds of herbs, some of which take multiple years to grow. Additionally, the fire took all of the infrastructure we need to dry, process, and get these beautiful plants out of the ground and into your homes. The loss is unbearable and feels insurmountable, but we hope that with your help we can rebuild what we’ve lost, both physically and emotionally.
Oshala Farm is more than Elise and Jeff, it is a team of highly skilled and passionate people, most of whom have been with us for over a decade. We're a family farm, and we employ nearly 40 full-time year round employees and another 20 seasonal workers, our dedicated and devoted team are at the top of our mind. Together, we have built Oshala Farm into what it is today and without them we wouldn't be able to provide all the incredible herbs we do. We met with our incredible team this morning and as a group we agreed that we will rebuild and persevere.
The good news is our fields are full of herbs, and thanks to the fast action of our team we were able to move almost all of our tractors and equipment out of harms way. The bad news is we have lost all of our drying, storage and cold storage facilities, as well as our processing equipment, a few tractors and most of our tools.
To ask for help at this time is humbling, with your donation we will begin the rebuilding our processing facilities, rebuying equipment, and keeping our amazing team working while we figure out what to do next.
Our goal is to get as many herbs from the field to our customers as possible this year. Without all of your amazing support of these last 13 years we would not be here today. We appreciate each and every one of you, and the outpouring of love from the community has meant so much to us. With your help we are confident Oshala Farm will be here to provide herbs for you for many, many years into the future.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
Elise, Jeff, and the rest of our team.