Huntington Beach Market Suffers Heavy Fire Damage : Landmark: A fast-moving blaze fed by strong winds nearly gutted a 55-year-old Main Street store and the apartments above it.

Standard Market, one of downtown’s old landmarks, suffered heavy damage on Wednesday afternoon when a fire erupted in the store’s kitchen and spread to a series of small apartments above, fire officials said.

The cause of the 12:28 p.m. blaze was still under investigation late Wednesday, but some witnesses and the owner of the blue and gray, two-story building speculated that it was sparked by an overturned pot of hot cooking oil.

“I heard a lot of hissing and sizzling in the kitchen,” said Ramin Hodgatolah Taleghani, 28, who lives in a second-floor apartment of the building, located at the corner of Main Street and Walnut Avenue, one block from Pacific Coast Highway.

Huntington Beach Fire Chief Raymond C. Picard said that six firefighting units responded to the blaze within two minutes of its report. He said that although firefighters quickly gained control, the fire almost got out of hand because of winds estimated to be blowing at almost 20 m.p.h.

“This could have easily gutted it,” Picard said. “It was minutes from a total loss, if not seconds.”

There were no injuries in the fire, which closed Main Street between Pacific Coast Highway and Olive Avenue for several hours, although there were as many as 15 people in the store and the apartments when the blaze broke out, fire officials said.

Picard said that firefighters responding to the two-alarm blaze took extra precautions--remembering the injuries of a firefighter trapped under collapsing debris in a fire at the Robert August surf shop four years ago to the day.

Fire investigators spent the day probing the ashes for clues. An exact cause of the blaze and damage estimates were not expected to be immediately released, Fire Department spokeswoman Birgit Davis said.

At one point, flames shot as high as 25 feet from the top of the low-slung building, witnesses said.

Taleghani said that he and a few other patrons were playing pool in the rear of the store when they noticed thick, black smoke pouring from a small kitchen area used by residents. They stood there observing it for a second, stunned, he said.

“Then I saw the fire,” Taleghani said. “I ran out of the store and tried to look for a fire extinguisher.”

Dashing to the Chuck Dent Surf Center across the street, Taleghani said that he grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprinted back to the rear of the store.

Using the fire extinguisher, he rushed upstairs to his apartment and was able to save his dog and his electric guitar. Standing outside the building as firefighters poured water on the smoldering roof, Taleghani lamented that his clothing and other belongings were ruined.

“My eyes were full of tears; I was choking,” he said. “I think I blacked out for a second.”

“What a disaster,” Taleghani added. “I can’t even believe it.”

Fire officials said the Red Cross had been notified and would provide shelter and clothing for the five residents of the upstairs apartments.

The 55-year-old store has a colorful history as a gathering place for locals, but recently has fallen on hard times.

In the 1930s, it was a place to get a cold drink from a soda jerk who manned the long, shiny fountain that once lined a wall.

“We had so much fun in that place,” said Sy Williams, 76, a retired city employee and longtime resident of the beach city. “It was the best place in town to go for anything but a good night’s sleep.”

In 1985, Standard Market, along with other older buildings, was declared a structural hazard by the city largely because it was considered seismically unsafe, Fire Chief Raymond C. Picard said. That decision came as the city was planning its redevelopment project for Main Street and the Huntington Beach Municipal Pier area.

“You essentially have had a condemned building here for five years,” Picard said. The store, however, has remained open under an agreement with the city while redevelopment plans are made.

“It remains to be seen what its (the store’s) future is,” Picard said, adding that it will remain closed while building inspectors determine if it is safe to reoccupy.

Because of the building’s structural problems, the city backed out of plans to reface the store’s exterior as it had some of the other buildings on the street.

Today, it is sandwiched between two new developments. On one side is the Pierside Pavilion, which includes boutiques, Peppers Golden Bear, offices and a soon-to-open condo complex and six-plex movie theater.

On the other side is the four-level Main Promenade Parking Structure, which will also include retail shops.

Downtown resident Mike Hughes was lunching at Peppers Golden Bear when the fire broke out.

“I was sitting down eating lunch, and the next thing I knew, there were no waiters waiting on us,” he said as he sat on his bicycle in front of Chuck Dent’s surf shop. “The whole place had cleared out. I thought we were getting a free meal.”

The store has remained a popular hangout for locals, who regularly gather at the small market to pass time playing pool and exchanging gossip. Its Art Deco-style facade stands out on the eclectic street that once was the center of Huntington Beach.

But ongoing construction, the February oil spill and the closed pier--long a strong tourist attraction--have contributed to financial troubles this year for store owners Mohammed and Abdo Zeidan. They said that they have owned the store for 17 years, and only recently have seen the small-town atmosphere of Main Street slip away.

“The whole year’s been bad,” Abdo Zeidan said. “Nobody wants to come here anymore, and now this. Maybe God doesn’t like us.”