Kevin R. Stanley didn’t expect to sleep much Wednesday night. Like most Cold Stream Lumber Co. workers, the 29-year-old Enfield man anticipates receiving a pink slip today or within the next 30 days or so – a sad and abrupt end to 101/2 years with the company. If he does, Stanley will wrestle with a blizzard of decisions he will have to make about his future.

Where could he find another job? What other careers could he pursue? How will he pay his bills? Will he have to move from the area?

“It’s overwhelming,” Stanley said Wednesday. “There are people who work here who probably have more problems than I do. I’m single … but I get bills like everybody else.”

Raymond Cobb of Burlington, Royce Charette of Mattawamkeag, and Beth Gerrish of Howland were equally concerned. Like Stanley, they expected to be laid off sooner or later. Unlike him, they have spouses and children to support.

Cobb and Charette hoped their dismissals would be delayed 30 days or so. Gerrish, who works in the company’s sawmill, expects a pink slip today.

“It sucks,” Gerrish said.

“I’m not sure what I am going to do,” Charette said. “It really bothers me when I think about it.”

“I used to do waitressing, but I don’t think I will go back to it,” Gerrish said. “I’m happier doing this.”

With the ruins of their destroyed sawmill still smoldering outside, Cold Stream owners Bruce Hamilton and Fred Schult gathered most of their 50-member work force in a remaining building to announce that 30 to 35 of them would be laid off today or by Friday, five to 10 more than previously anticipated.

Company officials hoped to begin layoffs Wednesday, but were still assembling the list.

Hamilton and Schult made it plain they would rather not lay off anyone, but the fire that devastated their sawmill early Saturday, doing about $2 million in damage, left them no choice.

“I don’t have any idea how long it might be before the mill could be back up,” Hamilton said, looking haggard. “Some have guessed four to six months, but there’s really no way to know right now.”

The sawmill at Cold Stream, 542 Hammett Road, was ablaze from end to end when the first firefighters arrived just six minutes after the building’s fire alarm sounded at 1:20 a.m. Saturday. The cause of the fire remains undetermined, Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland said Wednesday.

Sgt. Stu Jacobs of the State Fire Marshal’s Office and two state police officers visited the site Wednesday, as did insurance adjusters. Cold Stream officials started seeking price quotes to rebuild their mill on-site. They are investigating working with other sawmills to get wood that could keep their wood planers and kilns operational when the company’s stockpiles of cut white pine are exhausted. Cold Stream annually cuts about 12 million feet of pine for wholesale distribution.

But until the fire’s cause is determined, or the company’s fire insurance claims are settled, no one can begin cleaning up the site or initiating the many steps that would bring Cold Stream back to life.

“We have a long way to go,” Schult said. “The insurance process is not something that we control.”

Many workers stressed that they didn’t blame Schult or Hamilton for the layoffs. They described the owners as compassionate but not lenient bosses, quick to offer workers help with personal problems while being very committed to the success of their business.

Help is coming in. The state Labor Department’s rapid response team met with the workers Wednesday to offer assistance. They promised the workers they would try to fast track their unemployment claims once layoffs occur.

The team gave the workers packets of information and had them do surveys that will help the state find jobs for the displaced. Local pantries and a nearby church will offer food to the unemployed, and the state’s 23 job centers are available to workers. Town workers and local libraries also will offer Internet service to those who need it to search for jobs, team members said.

Still, the shock of the fire hung over the workers, who stood in small, abject groups around the company’s dirt parking lot, smoking cigarettes after the state team had left. Some wondered how, with gasoline prices at almost $3 a gallon, they could afford driving to Bangor or other places to find work.

Gerrish recalled finding out about the fire when her brother told her Saturday morning that she had better start looking for another job.

“I said, ‘Don’t tell me that. That’s not funny,'” Gerrish remembered.

But he explained that the sawmill had burned down, and Gerrish raced to work where she found firefighters and the smoldering ruins.

“I didn’t believe it,” she said.