$500,000 Fire Destroys Gardening Supply Store : Thousand Oaks: Owners see their hopes for a good year dashed by the blaze, which started in a dumpster. Arson has not been ruled out.

Reiner Norpchen spent two years building his Thousand Oaks gardening supply store. In the short time it took him to drive from his home to the store Wednesday morning, it was gone.

*

All that remained after an early morning fire tore through the shop were a few charred reminders of his hard work--a stone fountain, handmade wood-paneled doors and a sign above the front gate carved with the store’s name: Reiner’s.

The fire began about 2 a.m. in a dumpster about 50 feet behind the business, which sells and services lawn mowers and tractors. Investigators have not determined how the fire began, but have not ruled out arson.

“Things were just turning around for us,” said Norpchen, who turns 64 today and has owned the store for 12 years. “It’s going to be very difficult just to start all over again. This is just awful.”

Fire officials said the Foothill Drive store and its contents were valued at about $500,000. By the time firefighters arrived, officials said, all they could do was contain the blaze.

“They could see the flames from a long way before they even got there,” said Ventura County Fire Capt. Charles Sitton, who was in charge of the mop-up Wednesday morning. “It was fully involved.”

Dispatchers were alerted to the fire after alarms at the store went off and a resident of a nearby apartment called 911.

It took more than 50 firefighters with seven engines two hours to bring the blaze under control, a Fire Department spokeswoman said. Even a brush fire strike team was dispatched to the blaze because vegetation separated the store from an apartment complex.

The dumpster where the blaze began sat at the base of a grassy hill behind the K mart on Hampshire Road.

Ron Terrinoni, operations manager of K mart, said his store has repeatedly had problems with vandalism and people digging through dumpsters in the alley.

“Practically every day we have to send someone back there to clean up the mess,” he said. “I’m sure someone was rummaging back there or hanging out in the alley and tossed a cigarette or something into the dumpster.”

For Norpchen, the fire could not have come at a worse time, since the store’s peak sales period is only weeks away.

“The season for us starts in February,” said Shirley Norpchen, 61, who worked in the store with her husband and a mechanic. “The way things went over Christmas, we could tell this was going to be a good year for us. But now all that’s changed.”

She said the couple had not had time to discuss the loss with an insurance agent.

“I guess our only hope is to get ourselves relocated and try to salvage this season,” she said.

In the meantime, Reiner Norpchen poked through the ashes of the structure he had built, avoiding its metal girders, which had melted in the intense heat.

“We think maybe our file cabinet made it through this,” he said. “Other than that, I don’t know. This thing was so intense that if anything survived, it would be a miracle.”