Vintage hangar destroyed in fire
AIRPORT: The pre-World War II structure and several planes burn at the Hemet-Ryan facility.
05/30/2003
By RICH SASKAL
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
HEMET - A fire early Thursday destroyed a hangar at Hemet-Ryan airport and five airplanes stored inside.
There were no injuries in the fire, which was reported just after 4 a.m., Hemet Fire Chief Richard Stacey said by telephone.
The 20,000-square-foot hangar was turned into a blackened mass of rubble, with little trace of the aircraft once stored there, though the burned out hulk of a car and a truck remained.
The hangar was built before World War II, and its wood-frame construction was a major factor in the speed of the blaze, said Rob Field, supervisor of Riverside County's aviation division, which owns the airport.
"They're well-built structures, but they're timber, not steel," Field said.
DeeAnn Bradley/The Press-Enterprise
A Hemet firefighter sprays down hot spots after a fire destroyed one of the hangars Thursday at Hemet-Ryan Airport. Hangar One Cafe in the background is a place were many firefighters bought their coffee.
The hangar's destruction will have no impact on the air show planned Saturday at the airport, he said.
The fire drew nine engines and two ladder trucks from both the Hemet Fire Department and Riverside County Fire Department, Stacey said. It took 45 minutes to bring the fire under control and another hour and a half to knock down the flames, he said.
The airport is operated by Hemet-Ryan Aviation, Inc., under a contract with Riverside County. Company owner Lloyd Cliff said the hangar destroyed Thursday was the third World War II-era hangar to burn at the airport.
The first burned more than 30 years ago, he said. The second hangar burned in 1998. A two-week investigation of that blaze did not determine a cause.
A joint city-county team will investigate Thursday's fire, Stacey said.
Two businesses based in the building were displaced, and three of the destroyed planes were vintage World War II-era craft, Cliff said.
"Apparently everything I had in there was lost," said Kirt Hill, owner of Advanced Avionics, a firm that repairs, tests and installs aircraft instrumentation.
Hill, of Hemet, said his shop was full of test equipment, technical manuals and spare parts. The business was insured, Hill said, but he didn't know how much would actually be covered.
Stacey said the structural damage was $1.6 million and the value of the contents were estimated at $600,000, though that figure might rise, he said.
Field said the cost of building a new hangar would be about $3.5 million.
Reach Rich Saskal at (909) 763-3458 or
rsaskal@pe.com
