Four Believed Killed as Flames Spark Explosion in Gun Store

A fast-moving fire fed by live ammunition and gunpowder swept through a Pasadena-area gun shop early Wednesday, trapping four people, all of whom are believed dead.

Los Angeles County Fire Department officials said the four people, including a mother and son who owned the store, Fowler’s Gun Shop, were trapped inside the two-story building when a small basement fire suddenly erupted into a massive explosion that reverberated along several blocks of Rosemead Boulevard, just south of Colorado Boulevard.

The store manager, Brent Hanson, told fire officials that he escaped moments before the explosion and carried to safety a 3-year-old girl, whose father and grandmother, the store owners, apparently died in the blaze. Hanson told relatives of the victims that the girl was handed to him by her grandmother, who then went to telephone the Fire Department.

The girl, Crystal Fowler, was airlifted from Methodist Hospital in Arcadia to the burn center at Brotman Memorial Hospital in Culver City. A Fire Department spokesman said she was in critical condition with second- and third-degree burns over 35% of her body. Hanson, who watched firefighters battle the blaze for more than an hour, was later taken to Arcadia Methodist with first- and second-degree burns. He was listed in stable condition.

As firefighters dug through the smoldering debris in a search that had yielded no bodies as of late afternoon, relatives of the victims held on to a slim hope that their loved ones survived the explosion. Fire officials said there was almost no chance that any of the four survived the blaze. But they withheld official confirmation of the deaths and the victim’s identities until the bodies were recovered.

“It doesn’t look good,” Brad Fowler said. “I’m not sure anyone could survive this.”

Fowler, who lives in Orange County, said he was on his way to visit his 55-year-old mother, Coleen, and his 39-year-old brother, Mike, who together owned and operated the store. By the time he arrived, he said, flames had engulfed the popular gun and fishing equipment center, a family business that had built a large and devoted clientele during 20 years of operation.

“I saw the smoke and I said, ‘Oh, my God! What’s happened?’ ”

Fowler and several store employees, who had not yet arrived for work at the time of the fire, said that in addition to the Fowlers, two employees were trapped inside the store. They identified the employees as Bob Ellington, in his 70s, and his daughter, Laura Hendersen, in her 30s.

Fire officials said the cause of the two-alarm blaze remains unknown but they believe it started in the basement at about 8:30 a.m., where Mike Fowler, a gunsmith, was apparently working. Because the store did not open until 10 a.m., several employees theorized that the doors were locked for security reasons, thereby trapping the victims.

Hanson told fire investigators that he was working in the showroom near a display of Civil War guns when he noticed smoke coming from the basement. He said he ran downstairs and tried to help Mike Fowler put out the blaze with a fire extinguisher. When that failed, Hanson told the victims’ relatives, he ran upstairs to a second-floor office. There, Coleen Fowler handed Hanson her granddaughter.

Moments later, an explosion blew glass from the store more than 50 feet across Rosemead Boulevard.

“I heard this tremendous explosion and all I saw was glass flying all over the place,” said Dan Sweetman, who works down the street. “It sounded like a bomb of some sort, a big boom sound.”

Leonard Knolhoff, a gun shop employee who saw the fire as he was driving to work, said the building had been remodeled three years ago and was fireproof. Knolhoff said 100 pounds of gunpowder was stored in the basement in a heavy metal case. He said electrical equipment used to repair guns in the basement was far removed from the gunpowder.

Knolhoff said the building’s contents, including an extensive antique gun collection, fishing equipment and hundreds of handguns and shotguns, were worth about $2 million.

Twelve county units and more than 30 firefighters battled the blaze for more than three hours. Because of some confusion, fire officials had erroneously said earlier in the day that the four bodies had been recovered.