Abandoning the multigenerational family business isn’t an option, said lumber yard owner John Blazzard.
“Our desire is to reestablish the sawmill,” he told KPCW. “A lot of us because we're stubborn, and that's our heritage, I guess.”
Rebuilding the Kamas Valley’s only surviving mill won’t be cheap.
Blazzard said they’ve received help from the governor's office, the U.S. Forest Service and the Utah Division of Forestry and Fire. All have encouraged him to apply for grants, although federal grant money has been on hold since November.
The community crowdfunded more than $18,000 in the aftermath of the November 2024 fire, which destroyed the building, its out-of-production German saw and all but a couple million feet of timber the family had hoped to mill this winter.
Blazzard told KPCW investigators couldn’t pinpoint a cause.
His main revenue source while rebuilding has been selling firewood.
Blazzard could build a mill for construction materials, similar to what it used to be. But the world has changed a lot since his father, James Blazzard, opened the mill around 1956. The business itself has existed since 1944.
Blazzard remembers there were once seven sawmills in Kamas, back when Uinta Mountains timber was considered high quality.
He said other mills shuttered for lack of Forest Service logging permits, and waves of bark beetle infestations have ravaged once-green groves.
“Most of the wood coming out of these beetle-killed logs ends up as sheeting or pallet wood or mine timbers, industrial stuff to stack materials on. This is not the high quality, high value stuff,” Blazzard explained. “So we're kind of weighing our possibilities as we revamp our mill to be able to make more industrial wood instead of high quality building materials.”
Blazzard Lumber sits on the northern edge of Kamas, on state Route 32. It’s been there so long that it predates zoning.
That adds a layer of bureaucratic complexity to the emotionally and financially taxing rebuilding process. The land is zoned ag-residential, nothing industrial, so if the Blazzards want to change or expand the mill, they need a rezone to get the right permits.
John Blazzard has spoken with county and Kamas City officials about the issue. Both want to help, but they want to avoid granting overbroad zoning that, were the family ever to sell, would legalize some other industrial use right in the middle of town.
Lumber, as Kamas Mayor Matt McCormick sees it, is different.
“Sawmills have been a heritage in and been a part of Kamas City forever,” he said at the Feb. 11 city council meeting. “I don't know if anyone else is interested in protecting them like I believe we should be in Kansas City. That's part of who we are, along with ranching and farming.”
Blazzard hasn’t formally applied for annexation, but city councilmembers said they’d consider his application if he did.
“With winter on. We need to have some, you know, maybe some space heaters or an electric drill or a grinder or a welder, those kind of things. And so we've been trying to get temporary power put back in.”
Annexation usually means access to city utilities. And councilmembers like David Darcey and Jessica Bateman noticed the Blazzards’ land abuts city sewage ponds, which they’d like to include too.
“I don't want to do just one parcel, and so overall, I think I'm for it,” Bateman said. “I'm a little concerned taking on the uncertainty in the city, because you say you want to rebuild, but I don't think we all know what that looks like.”
An annexation petition might include more specific plans for the council, and Blazzard confessed some uncertainty too.
“I guess what I could use right now is somebody to come in and tell me how to do it,” he said. “We kind of know what we would like to do. It's just a matter of trying to figure out if we can and how it's gonna all fit together, because it's gonna be very, very expensive, I'm afraid.”
But Darcey called the Blazzards “pillars of our community”; the fifth-generation family isn’t going anywhere.
