Warehouse Fire Leaves Only a Charred Shell

Flames shot through the roof of a Huntington Beach warehouse Friday evening in a fire that damaged Scandinavian furniture valued at about $80,000 and left the building a charred shell.

About 40 firefighters from Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley fought the two-alarm fire--reported at 4:48 p.m.--on Beach Boulevard at Ronald Road. They found the 4,800-square-foot building “totally engulfed in flames” but had the fire under control within 20 minutes, Huntington Beach Fire Department spokeswoman Martha Werth said. Homes directly behind the warehouse on Ronald Road were not evacuated and were never in danger, she said.

At 6 p.m., the building was still smoldering and firefighters, saying it was still too hot to enter, were occasionally dousing it with water.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation Friday night. James Lange, owner of the warehouse and of Viking Furniture, a retail store in front of it, said he had no idea how the fire began but doubted that it was arson.

Hard to Enter

For one thing, the warehouse would be hard to enter since it is surrounded by a strong, metal fence, Lange noted. For another, he said, “we don’t have anybody mad at us.”

Lange said he was working in the retail store when his wife, Ruth, made a trip to the warehouse.

“My wife just opened the back door, and she found the flames were on,” he said. Lange immediately called the firefighters, who fought rush-hour traffic to arrive in about three minutes. “They were the longest three minutes of my life,” Lange said.

Lange said he had enough inventory in his store to handle Christmas sales. Still, as he talked to fire officials and discussed whether to station security guards at the burned-out building overnight, his mood was somber.

“It just looks like a mess to me,” Lange said.

Friday night’s fire occurred about half a mile from the site of a spectacular $4-million Thanksgiv ing Day fire that destroyed a senior citizens housing complex that was under construction.

Huntington Beach Fire Chief Raymond C. Picard has said the earlier fire, at Five Points Court, a four-story, 148-unit complex at Main and Florida streets, was arson.

The Nov. 27 fire, called the worst in the city’s history, demolished the housing complex, burned balconies on a nearby senior citizens home, ignited shake roofs on at least five apartment buildings and damaged 60 automobiles.