Last Wednesday, Mr Chalmers could only watch as flames from the Burnside fire tore through his McLeods Rd business, destroying 2000 tonnes of wood.
"That was my stock for the next eight months, so it’s really set me back for the next year."
After the initial shock of watching the business burn in front of him, Mr Chalmers said he did the only thing he could — returned to work.
"We’ve got a little bit of firewood left and which will be all gone in a month or so and we’ve got all our timber supplies so we’re just looking for logs.
"We might be down but we’re certainly not out."
The logs were not covered by his insurance.
Since the fire, support had come from all over New Zealand from friends, customers and even strangers.
"We just want people to know we’re still open. I don’t want charity. We just want to get back to work again."
Mr Chalmers and some of the other property owners affected by the fire had got together to discuss how to deal with the clean-up and cover the cost of the damage.
But until fire investigators finished their investigation there was not much the business owners could do.
"We really don’t know what’s happening. It’s just a matter of waiting to see what comes out of that investigation."
Fire and Emergency New Zealand incident controller Phil Marsh said although the fire was unlikely to reignite, fire crews were still periodically checking the Burnside area for any hot spots.
"We’ve got people going over it every few hours and they will probably keep doing that until the end of the week."
Drones with heat-sensitive cameras were flown over the area to check on the ground temperature, which had dropped substantially over the weekend, Mr Marsh said.
The investigation into how the fire started was ongoing, he said.
