Fire Destroys Old Wooden Barn Used in Weyerhaeuser Operation

A fast-moving fire swept through the largest wooden barn in the county Saturday morning, destroying the structure and more than $1 million in machinery and cardboard strawberry crates, officials said.

None of the five workers who were inside the building was injured.

A spark from an electrical short inside the five-story red barn started the blaze just before 10 a.m., said Joe Luna, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesman. Flames quickly spread to the walls of the barn, which sits amid strawberry fields off Vineyard Avenue near Lambert Street.

A pillar of black smoke was visible throughout the west county, and a portion of Vineyard was closed for more than an hour.

Workers inside the structure--sometimes known as the Hobson barn--tried to fight the blaze with a fire extinguisher before escaping the flames, Luna said.

It took about 40 firefighters more than two hours to contain the blaze, Luna said.

There were no hydrants close to the barn so fire crews had to route water through several hoses from hydrants a couple hundred yards away, Luna said.

Even if water had been readily accessible the fire likely would have destroyed the 300-foot-by-40-foot building in a short time because the barn and its contents were so dry, Luna said.

As fire crews battled the fire, the barn’s owner, Bob Jones, 79, shook his head and stared as bright orange flames licked at the stately structure built by his father.

“I grew up in it, I played in it as a child, but you know I had a hunch it would some day burn down,” Jones said.

The barn had been used to store up to 1,380 tons of hay, but it was recently leased to Weyerhaeuser Co. to construct and store strawberry crates, Jones said.

He had considered tearing down the old wood barn and replacing it with a modern, metal model like the ones that dot Ventura’s agricultural areas. “The Fire Department asked us awhile back if they could burn it down for practice,” Jones said.

Jones said he was at the barn at about 9 a.m. Saturday helping move strawberry crates before returning to his home near the Saticoy Country Club to watch a football game.

But when a friend called to tell him and his wife about a fire, Jones said he jumped in his car and rushed back. “From my house I could see the black smoke and I knew what it was,” he said.

Behind the barn, a metal shed was warped and charred from the smoke and heat, but two pepper trees were still standing.

Jones said his father cut down most of the property’s other trees years ago, but spared the two pepper trees.

“I hope they make it,” he said, as firefighters sprayed them with water.