Safe Preserves Documentation Supporting Fire Claim, And Furniture Store’s Future

The safe looks like a shipwrecked vessel. Its concrete casing has been scorched brown. Charred boards cover its top. A Sept. 25 fire destroyed Everett Office Furniture’s longtime headquarters in downtown Everett. The business lost every piece of inventory except one: the fire safe. Inside its popped-open drawers, undamaged, lay the paperwork — drawings, invoices, receipts, records — that ensured the small company could survive. “We had several large projects in process,” Everett Office Furniture owner Brian Hollingshead said.