Flames Claim Ham Radio Outlet's Anaheim Store

Ham Radio Outlet's Anaheim, California, store was destroyed by fire early Sunday, January 23.

The fire--said to be of suspicious origin--apparently first broke out in a dental office at the south end of the strip mall that housed the HRO store on North Euclid Avenue.

After spreading into an attic area, the flames raged through the rest of the business center, engulfing the HRO store, the dental office, and two other businesses. Two other shops were damaged.

The Anaheim HRO store's manager, Janet Margelli, KL7MF, said she was alerted to the fire by the store's alarm company. She arrived just in time to see flames engulf her store.

"Talk about feeling helpless and hopeless--you just watch it burn," she told the ARRL. Margelli said the store and its contents were a total loss.

The cause of the fire has not been determined, but arson investigators were said to be focusing on the burned-out remains of the dental office where the fire is thought to have originated. Fire investigators also are trying to determine why a car parked in an alley several hundred feet away caught fire and exploded, since it did not appear that the fire in the strip mall caused the car fire.

More than 80 firefighters were called out to battle the four-alarm blaze, and it took them the better part of two hours to bring it under control. Margelli said flames were shooting 200 feet into the air as she arrived on the scene. No injuries were reported. Damage was estimated at $1.5 million.

Operations at the HRO Anaheim store--including telephone and fax--are being handled temporarily by the company's Burbank store a couple of hours away, using staffers from both stores. Margelli is coordinating the opening of an all-new store in an undamaged store area in the same business center.

The only item recovered from inside the HRO store was a plastic owl decoy that now has become the store's new mascot. The owl decoys--sold to scare birds away from towers and beams--had been suspended from a display tower in the store. After the fire, Margelli said, one decoy--"Smokey," as it's now being called--was found a bit worse for the wear atop a pile of ash and charcoal in the center of the display. Margelli said Smokey will get his own display case in the new store.

HRO operates a dozen stores across the US, including five stores in California. Margelli said she hopes to have the new Anaheim location open for business within two or three weeks.

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