GARDEN GROVE : Man, 72, Sees Fire Destroy His Business

Tired and dazed, Tom Rock stood by and helplessly watched his life belongings burned to ashes.

“Everything that I have, everything that I left in there, I lost,” the 72-year-old man said sadly, looking into the building suite that once housed his business and his prized 24-foot motorboat.

“All that’s left is the man talking to you,” Rock said, adding that his business and boat were uninsured.

The Friday morning blaze that gutted his business, Tom Rock Enterprises, also forced the evacuation of several other small firms that rented space in the single-story industrial building in the 12000 block of Western Avenue.

More than 30 firefighters from the Garden Grove, Orange, Anaheim and Orange County fire departments controlled the blaze within 20 minutes. There were no reported injuries.

Rock said he was working in his shop, which manufactures vacuum nozzles and polishing bonnets for commercial car washes, when he noticed smoke and flames coming from the back of the room.

What happened after that was a blur, the Los Alamitos man said.

Fire officials said Rock called 911 at 10:36 a.m., yelled “Fire!” and hung up.

When firefighters arrived, they found Rock and a worker from a business next door trying to douse flames that, by then, were burning through the roof.

Rock “was trying to extinguish the fire by himself, and I was trying to help him,” said John Haugland, 20, who works at a general contracting business next door. “Flames were shooting 30 to 40 feet out of the roof. There wasn’t anything we could do.”

“This thing was cooking,” said Garden Grove Fire Capt. Craig Anderson. “The extra time it took for (firefighters) to hook the big water lines up may have saved” the building from more damage.

Craig said Rock’s shop and the general contracting business were the only two affected by the fire.

Fire investigators said the blaze apparently was caused by a flammable liquid that may have been ignited by a pilot light from a hot water heater in Rock’s shop. Estimated damage to both businesses was $325,000.

“I couldn’t save my business, I couldn’t save my boat,” Rock said. “Everything is gone. It was a small business, but it was everything that I had.”

“I guess I’ll just have to start all over again,” Rock said wearily, rubbing his soot-covered face. “I’ve started over so many times, it’s no different now, I guess.”