60 Boats, 30 Motor Homes Destroyed as Fire Ravages Mission Bay Warehouse

Fire erupted Tuesday evening at a cavernous warehouse on the grounds of a Mission Bay campground, destroying about 60 boats and 30 motor homes, threatening dozens of other motor homes and producing a huge cloud of noxious smoke.

No one was hurt in the two-alarm blaze at Campland on the Bay.

Even Barney, a 4-month-old kitten that had recently taken up residence in the warehouse, got out shortly after the fire began at 6:10 p.m. and was scooped up to safety, campground operators said.

Battalion Chief Art Robertson estimated that the fire caused $2.5 million to $3 million in damage. The cause was uncertain.

“It was large, it fast, and it was expensive,” Robertson said.

Besides the smoke, which drifted over nearby neighborhoods, water laden with chemical residue drained into Mission Bay and created a potential “environmental hazard,” firefighters said.

“What can you do?” asked Mary Stein, 44, manager of Campland on the Bay, situated in the northeast section of the bay, just south of Mission Bay High School. “I’m just really grateful no one was hurt.”

The fire burned so hotly that the skeletons of boats glowed bright blue in the night.

As the fire burned, Jim Krumm, 27, an auto tune-up specialist, watched from a virtual front-row seat, a chair outside his recreational vehicle just outside a yellow-taped police and fire line. A few dozen yards from the line, firefighters doused the remains of a boat burning just 10 feet from a 1,000-gallon liquid propane tank.

Krumm, who was putting the finishing touches on a hamburger sizzling on a portable grill, said he heard an explosion, “like a gas tank, something like that,” about the time the fire started.

Robertson said there were “probably 10 or 15 explosions,” most likely from solvents, resins and gasoline inside the warehouse. “But the explosions (residents) heard were not at the beginning,” he said.

The warehouse served Campland as a boat storage facility, marina and tool shed, Stein said. About 100 feet wide, 200 feet high and 30 feet high, the warehouse had space for 70 boats, though there were about 40 inside, she said.

The vessels ranged from 24-foot cruisers to jet skis, Stein said. Space was rented not just to Campland regulars but to anyone who needed to store a boat, Stein said.

Besides all sorts of tools, the warehouse contained acetylene tanks for welding, propane and other combustible items, Stein said.

The curiosity, she said, is that Campland maintenance workers regularly lock the warehouse each working day at 4:30 p.m.

In the first few minutes after the fire broke out, flames shot well over 100 feet high, bystanders said.

As the flames licked at the warehouse, anxious campers raced to get away. A free-lance photographer said he saw one recreational vehicle owner--in a rush to escape--pull away from his camping site without unhooking his water line, then dent his 40-foot-long vehicle by running over bicycles.

The rush to get out came at the same time that fire trucks were arriving at the scene, causing a temporary traffic jam, the photographer said.

Eventually, about 50 firefighters were dispatched to battle the blaze, Robinson said. After aiming their houses at the warehouse for about an hour, firefighters decided to let the blaze burn itself out because they noticed that the water they had poured onto the flames was carrying chemical residue into the bay, Robinson said.

Thick smoke, apparently produced by burning chemicals, drifted east across Interstate 5 about a mile away and carried over Bay Park and part of Clairemont.

Times staff writers Bernice Hirabayashi and Monica Rodriguez contributed to this story.