By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Fire officials say it is impossible to determine what caused the fire that did more than $1 million worth of damage at a Curran Renewable Energy warehouse.

Nearly 90 firefighters from seven local fire departments battled the massive blaze, fire officials said.

Massena Fire Department Chief Bill Kearns said the fire was so intense it destroyed evidence of its origin.

“The insurance company is probably going to do some investigating. I ruled it as undetermined. There’s not a whole lot to investigate,” he said Tuesday.

Curran Renewable Energy owner Pat Curran said the warehouse contained a little over $900,000 in wood pellets. He bought the building from the St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency three years ago for about $650,000. However, Curran said it will cost more than that to replace.

“It’s going to have to be replacement value, which is much higher than what we paid for it,” Curran said.

He said the fire will not impact his company’s day-to-day operations.

“It’s certainly going to take a lot of manpower to clean up this mess,” Curran said. “We’re still producing. We have inventory, so there isn’t going to be any shortage … It’s really going to affect [insurance] premiums going forward.”

He said he does not believe the pellets would spontaneously combust the way that wet hay would.

“This product is put in the warehouse at 5 percent moisture. So it just can’t happen. And not only that, they’re not sitting on top of each other. They’re all in individual 40-pound bags,” Curran said.

He credits the large force of fire officials who came to quell the blaze.

“It was just unbelievable effort by all the fire departments that were involved to work together and put this out, just incredible,” he said.