Oregon Public Broadcasting

A U.S. Forest Service building destroyed by a fire last week in Enterprise, Oregon was undergoing renovation work. Workers were applying coats of stain to the structure before the blaze broke out. David Nogueras has more.

Contractors hired by the building's owner, SeaSide Associates, were performing routine refurbishing work on the log structure. It's not clear if that work had anything to do with the cause of the blaze. 

Judy Wing is a spokeswoman with the Wallowa Whitman National Forest.

Judy Wing: "The fire investigators have completed work at the fire scene and that would be ATF and the state fire marshal. Examination of evidence, interviews and other investigative work is continuing.  The cause of the fire remains under investigation."

In the meantime, former tenants of the building are getting back to work.

Spokeswoman Judy Wing says last Friday, the visitor's center reopened across the state highway at the Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce office. 

The USDA service center was also displaced by the fire. Wing says it's set up shop in a conference room at the Best Western.Judy Wing: "So everybody's open for business and we're moving forward"

Wing says the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest is also in the process of finding short-term and intermediate-term office space for these operations.