On January 1, a store had inventory of $68,000. January purchases were $46,000 and January sales were $100,000. On February 1 a fire destroyed most of the inventory. The rate of gross profit on selling price was 25%. Merchandise with a selling price of $9,000 remained undamaged after the fire.

Using the Gross Profit Method, the amount of the fire loss, assuming the store had no insurance coverage was [----].