FIRE DESTROYS HEADWEAR INVENTORY

A fire damaged three warehouses and wiped out much of Mad Bomber’s winter inventory in Winchester Virginia.

Margie Pingley, warehouse distribution manager for the Mad Bomber, said the facility had over 50,000 bomber-style hats for L.L. Bean, Gander Mountain, Cabelas Inc., and other national retailers.

"We had most of our inventory for the season inside the warehouse”, she said. The fire, which took four hours to extinguish, caused about $1 million in damages to the building and destroyed around $2 million worth of Mad Bomber's inventory, officials said.

Pingley said the burned hats comprised a large part of Mad Bomber's 111,000 items manufactured in China for the winter season. Several thousand hats already had been delivered to retailers. Along with the fur-lined hats, Mad Bomber lost rolls of fabric that would have been sent to China to make more hats.