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Fire decimates high desert antique shop Desert Curios, owners work to start over

A high desert couple is working to pick up the pieces after a fire destroyed their business, with losses estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Holly Carlyle and Jeff Burgess are going inch-by-inch through what used to be their antique shop, Desert Curios in Yucca Valley. A fire last Wednesday decimated almost everything in their one-of-a-kind collection, and the building itself.

"It's been a lot of work," Burgess said. "You have to go in and start looking through the rubble, and the amount of damage that was done to the store was enormous."

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One item at a time, they're pouring through the charred remains. Books, artwork, furniture, jewelry – precious treasures all blackened by flames.

"It's everything that we have; it's everything that we were working to protect," Carlyle said. "Irreplaceable, beautiful items that we had taken a lifetime to collect."

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

The owners said one of the most devastating pieces of the tragedy is that their beloved cat Biscuits has gone missing.

"For almost five hours we hand-dug through the rubble, wanting to make sure that she wasn't there," Burgess said. "It was a relief when we hadn't found her."

Kimberly Sonntag was a loyal customer of Desert Curios, and is a friend to the owners. She's finding a silver lining: "The blessing in this is it's going to bring the community together and it's going to allow Holly and Jeff to build back bigger and better," she said.

"We're trying to do the best we can as quickly as possible because it's not an option; we plan to reopen," Carlyle said.

Desert Curios is holding a volunteer cleanup event on Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon. The store is located at 56001 Twentynine Palms Highway, Yucca Valley, CA 92284.

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Jake Ingrassia

Joining News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2 as a reporter, Jake is excited to be launching his broadcasting career here in the desert. Learn more about Jake here.

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