Flames Destroy Student Records : Simi Valley: The early-morning blaze at the school district’s warehouse causes $4 million in damage.

A spectacular fire early Tuesday gutted a school district warehouse in Simi Valley, causing more than $4 million in damage and destroying some irreplaceable school records, officials said.

The fire was reported about 4 a.m. at the Simi Valley Unified School District’s main warehouse in the 800 block of Cochran Street, said Ron Taylor, a County Fire Department spokesman. The cause of the fire, the third this year in the district and its most destructive ever in terms of valuable materials and records lost, has not been determined.

More than 80 firefighters battled for 2 1/2 hours to bring the blaze under control, Taylor said.

“The fire undoubtedly burned for quite a while before we got our first call because it had already gone through the roof when the first unit got on the scene,” Taylor said. The roof eventually collapsed.

No injuries were reported and no one was inside the 20,000-square-foot concrete structure, authorities said. The two-story building is directly behind the district’s administrative headquarters.

Firefighters were hampered by a slight northeasterly wind that whipped the flames, Taylor said. He said extra precautions had to be taken because several hundred gallons of toxic chemicals, mostly used for copier machines, were stored inside the 17-year-old building.

Mary Beth Wolford, assistant superintendent for business and property management, was among the first district officials on the scene.

Wolford and other district officials estimated the damage and loss of supplies and equipment at about $4 million but said the figure could go higher.

Instructional materials, including thousands of textbooks and hundreds of educational films, were destroyed, said Associate Supt. Allan Jacobs. Food for the district’s cafeterias also was destroyed.

But school officials said the biggest loss was student records, which they said went back to 1890, when the district was formed. However, Wolford said records after 1972 are contained on computer files in the district headquarters, and student records from 1985 to the present are kept at the individual schools.

The district, with 18,000 students and 26 schools, is the largest in Ventura County.

Jacobs said that although the district may have duplicates of some old records, others would be irreplaceable.

Wolford said some records were housed in a fireproof safe in the warehouse, but they constitute only a small portion of the district’s inventory.

Meanwhile, school officials said a number of local businesses have offered to help the district.

Wolford said the district has accepted an offer by Don Otto, owner of a local distributing company and an unsuccessful candidate in the school board election this month, of free storage space at one of his warehouses until a permanent facility can be found.

Wolford said the district will also use storage space offered by the Conejo Valley Unified School District.

In the meantime, she said, “We’ll be working with our insurance firm to decide what we are going to do long-range. It will probably take a year to 18 months to rebuild another facility.”

David Gering, a spokesman for Champion Development, said the developer offered four months of free rent on some unleased office space at Mountain Gate Plaza. Gering said the developer also plans to donate $1,000 to the district to help defray costs of the fire.

“We’ve gotten numerous offers from businesses located throughout Simi Valley, which we appreciate very much,” Wolford said. “Also, our neighboring school districts are calling to offer help and assistance. We’ve gotten calls as far away as Santa Barbara this morning.”

City Manager Lynn Koester said the city has also offered to provide space, materials and office equipment.

“If we can help, we’re ready to assist,” Koester said.

Wolford said the district’s purchasing and food service departments will work closely with the warehouse staff to determine the district’s needs over the next few weeks.

District officials said Robert Purvis, who will take over as superintendent on Saturday, was notified of the fire. Newly elected school board members Doug Crosse and Carla Kurachi, who will be sworn in Dec. 18, also were informed. Kurachi attended an afternoon briefing at the district’s headquarters.

It has been a tough year for the district, which recently underwent $8 million in budget cuts that included dozens of layoffs. Several top administrators have also left in the last few months, including Supt. John Duncan, chief administrator of the district for 16 years. He resigned in September to head a school district in Northern California.

In addition, the district is still recovering from two school fires. A fire in April at Park View Center School, a training facility for teachers and administrators, caused $250,000 in damage. The fire was blamed on faulty wiring.

An arson fire at Madera Elementary in August caused $150,000 in damage. Classrooms that were destroyed in the fires are still being rebuilt.

Wolford said she thought about all of these things as she watched the fire before dawn.

“I guess what was going through my mind was the terrific setback that this was going to be for us in trying to accomplish all we wanted to accomplish this year,” Wolford said. “It’s kind of a heartbreaking thing to need to give a lot of time to this issue. Unfortunately, it will be necessary.”

But Wolford said district officials are determined to make necessary adjustments with as few problems as possible.

“It’s not going to be crippling,” she said. “We’re going to move forward in a very smooth operation.”