Family members of two mill workers struggled Sunday against concluding their loved ones were probably killed in an explosion and fire that ripped apart their workplace.
The two men, missing since the blast in Burns Lake, B.C., Friday, were last seen at work.
RCMP said Sunday it will be some time before investigators can even get into the still-smoldering site. A structural engineer must deem it safe first, said Constable Lesley Smith.
The missing men are Carl Charlie, a father of two and a member of the Babine Lake Nation, and Robert Luggi, a member of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation just west of Burns Lake. He, too, was a father and had one grandchild. Both were in their 40s.
Smith said police began interviewing mill employees Sunday, but it will take a while before RCMP determine the cause of the blast or whether it was caused by criminal activity.
"The magnitude of this fire and the area is immense," she said.
"This will be a meticulous search as investigators must be methodical and thorough as they sift through the rubble and debris looking for any evidence, not only to determine a cause for the fire, but also in the event they find some remains."
Nineteen people were injured in the blast and at least four are in critical condition.
On Sunday, three were released from hospital in Prince George, the Northern Health Authority said in a statement.
Uninjured employees told of the horror of dragging out their injured, sometimes badly burned colleagues.
The mill, Babine Forest Products, is a joint venture between a business consortium of area aboriginal bands and Oregon-based forest company Hampton Affiliates.
Pale grey smoke was still gently rising Sunday from the site just off Highway 16.
In front of the burned-out rubble, piles of raw logs were neatly stacked next to wide, processed boards, all the wood covered in several inches of snow.
The mill opened in 1975, ushering in a wave of newcomers from across the country and building the village from the ground up, according to some of its working men.
For the better part of his life, grinding out 12-hour shifts on the floor of the sawmill had been all John Ruffell had known.
He said when his work week begins again, he'll be at a loss.
"Next week, we'll start figuring stuff out, I guess."
Aside from worries over the injured and missing, workers and their families are now trying to digest the future of the business that was so integral to the community and whether it can be rebuilt.
"There is hope. They can do it. It just takes the will," said one labourer, who has been 33 years on the job.
The impact of losing the mill will be "colossal," said Bruce Disher, a welder at the mill for 31 years.
"The whole town is basically Babine Forest Products. We have one other small sawmill, west of town. Probably 80 per cent of the jobs in Burns Lake end right here."
Premier Christy Clark arrived Sunday and said what comes next is a priority.
"I want to make sure that this community remains a vibrant forest-based community. And this mill has been the heart and soul of this community for a long, long time."
Steve Zika, chief executive officer of Hampton Affiliates, flew into the snow-coated village from Portland on Saturday afternoon.
"We realize what an important mill it is to the community and it's important to Hampton," he said at the news conference.
He said the planer and motorized equipment portions of the operation were intact, but the lion's share - worth anywhere from $25 million to $100 million - was gone.
"The bias, obviously, is to rebuild - who wouldn't want to? But until we get past the situation of our employees, there's just a lot of factors that go into that decision about whether to rebuild or not."
He noted the company would have to weigh the pine beetle problem and timber supply into the equation.
The scourge of pine beetles has devastated British Columbia's lumber industry, wiping out vast tracts of forest throughout the province.
"We really can't make any comment on when we'll know, other than promising the community we'll be transparent."
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