14 Fire Companies Battle Blaze at Garden Grove Thrifty

In what officials described as one of the city’s largest fires in recent memory, firefighters from Garden Grove and Anaheim early today were battling a blaze at a Thrifty Drug Store in a shopping center on the corner of Katella Avenue and Euclid Street.

“It was a heck of a big old blaze,” said an attendant at Bob’s Chevron Station, about 200 yards away from the fire. The attendant, who declined to give his name, said the service station was forced to turn away customers and close after power was shut off in the area.

The fire began around 9.30 p.m. Tuesday after the Thrifty store, in the Gardenland Shopping Center, had closed for the day, Garden Grove Fire Inspector Ed Lukas said. Some employees were still in the building but scampered to safety. No one was injured.

Lukas said the employees reported that the fire broke out near shelves stacked with cans of hair spray. Several small explosions were heard as flames shot from the store’s rooftop. Lukas said the fire “flashed” through the building and was raging out of control by the time 14 units from the Garden Grove and Anaheim Fire departments arrived on the scene.

But about 50 firefighters quickly contained the blaze and prevented it from spreading to adjacent shops, which including a K-mart Discount Store. Lukas said it was the largest fire in Garden Grove in recent memory. He said investigators could not immediately determine the fire’s cause.

Wilma Cain, who lives in nearby Golden Crest Mobile Homes, said she was watching television when a neighbor pounded on her door to warn her. “She told me that there was a fire in the drug store,” said Cain, 74. “When I looked, the flames and smoke were everywhere. The ash is covering our homes.”

Lukas said gas company officials also had to shut off a gas line that ruptured in an area behind the store. But that apparently was unrelated to the fire.