Blaze Chars Car Dealership

Huge flames lit up the early morning sky over Oxnard on Wednesday as a blaze gutted the showroom and offices of the Mike Wallace Ford dealership on Oxnard Boulevard.

The fire, which started between 5 and 5:15 a.m., destroyed about a dozen cars parked in the showroom and gutted the dealership’s parts department.

The service department in the back of the business was saved from the blaze by a firewall and firefighters, said Steve Elkinton, a fire investigator with the Oxnard Fire Department.

“It was a good thing they had that cinder block wall in there,” Elkinton said.

It took dozens of firefighters from five departments about two hours to extinguish the blaze.

Two firefighters who sustained minor burns were treated at local hospitals and released.

Preliminary estimates put the damage at more than $2.5 million, fire officials said.

One company official at the scene said the business lost more than $350,000 worth of parts, and several of the cars destroyed were worth more than $20,000 each.

The cause of the fire is being investigated, but officials are calling it suspicious.

Members of the Ventura County Arson Task Force showed up to sift through the rubble, bringing along a dog that can sniff out any fuel or other accelerant that might have been used to start the fire.

The Oxnard Fire Department has also received a few calls from tipsters, but did not release details.

Investigators believe the fire started in the back of the showroom, near one of the sales department’s desks, said Elkinton, but that was only from preliminary reports.

Michael Sinclair, a security guard who watches over the row of dealerships along Oxnard Boulevard, said he heard an alarm about 5:15 while he was making rounds.

Sinclair went to the Wallace dealership and saw smoke coming from just behind the showroom and immediately called the Fire Department. Looking into the showroom, Sinclair said he saw a small fire by some desks.

“But it grew fast, extremely fast,” he said.

By the time firefighters arrived, the building was fully engulfed in flames and the storefront windows had blown out from the heat, said David Keith, a spokesman for the Fire Department.

The Oxnard Fire Department called in engines and crews from the fire departments of Ventura County, the city of Ventura, Port Hueneme and the Port Hueneme Navy base, Keith said.

Several veteran firefighters recalled putting out a blaze more than 20 years ago at the dealership.

“It’s strange but it wasn’t much different from this one,” said Oxnard Firefighter Charles Dubose while standing outside the burned hulk of the building.

Perhaps even more disruptive for the dealership, the fire destroyed service records and the computer records on sales and parts, said Mark Grundstrom, the parts and service department director.

“No customer cars were damaged, fortunately, but the loss of the service records and the computer system . . . that’s devastating,” Grundstrom said.

The service department should be open today, but the sales department is expected to be closed until Monday, company officials said.

The fire comes less than two months after the Oxnard City Council approved a plan to loan the company $250,000 to relocate to the Oxnard Auto Center on Rose Avenue, said Steve Kinney, president of the Greater Oxnard Economic Development Corp.

The plan had angered some downtown merchants who said it was another example of officials pushing to consolidate businesses to the north end of town, to the detriment of Oxnard’s downtown.

The dealership recently pulled city permits to build and could begin construction of a new business before the end of the year, according to Kinney.

Times photographer Alan Hagman contributed to this story.