OXFORD — Almost three months after a fire damaged its facility and destroyed much of its stock of building materials, Keiser Industries is rebuilding, and employees are pulling long hours in the cold to make up for lost time.

“We lost a whole two bays off the back of our plant. It takes time, everybody’s working longer hours to make up for that,” Rusty St. Pierre, production manager at the Route 121 plant, said.

Sgt. Ken Grimes at the Maine Fire Marshal’s Office said though investigators know where the fire started July 17, determining how it started has proven to be difficult.

“The fire does originate around the dust collector area for sawdust, however, we aren’t able to pinpoint an exact cause, so the fire is going to be officially listed as undetermined,” Grimes said.

Despite having to rearrange production lines and working without heat in the modular housing plant, crews are still moving about 10 floors, or building sections, per week, according to St. Pierre. The company is also in the process of hiring, in hopes of vamping up construction to 12 floors per week soon.

“We’re hoping to increase production to 12 to make up for what we lost in the course of the summer,” St. Pierre said.

As cold weather descends upon the region, one of the biggest challenges workers are facing is that the plant is without heat, and with one wall on the back side of the plant still under construction, it’s difficult to keep the cold out.

St. Pierre said that while the company’s actual heating units were still operable after the fire, the gas lines coming into the building were damaged. Until those are replaced, the company is being cautious, not wanting a repeat of the near-disastrous setback it suffered this summer.

The past two months have been about taking stock and rebuilding. Initially, the production at Keiser Industries halted for approximately four to five weeks, according to St. Pierre. Even during that time, though, there was plenty of work to be done cleaning up after the fire and preparing the plant to reopen. St. Pierre said most of the employees were able to continue working with Servpro as they came in to conduct the cleanup.

As the cleanup was underway, St. Pierre an inventory revealed they lost everything from stacks of plywood and other wood building materials to personal hand tools employees may have been using near the fire.

“It set us back quite a bit. We had to reorder a lot of stuff and it just takes time to get stuff in,” St. Pierre said.

Overall, though, St. Pierre said the company is remaining positive about the progress they’ve made. It is looking to the future and making up for lost time, adding to all positions in its production crew and working on rebuilding the plant.

“Everybody is grateful for having their jobs still. Everybody’s back to work,” St. Pierre said.

Keiser Industries employs about 86 people on the construction side of the business, and approximately 105 total employees, he said.