When firefighters arrived on the scene the night the hangar fire broke out at the long-closed Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, they encountered fire hydrants that didn’t work and a blaze they couldn’t extinguish before it burned through nearly all of the enormous structure.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation and cleanup efforts continue in the neighborhoods around the north hangar. This week, the Navy committed $10 million more to the city toward efforts and officials said they are close on a contract to address the hangar’s remains.
Firefighters were first dispatched to the historic hangar at 12:53 a.m. on Nov. 7. The fire, according to Orange County Fire Authority incident reports, was estimated to be about the size of a vehicle. About 18 minutes later, firefighters confirmed that no fire hydrants inside the hangar area were working and soon it became a three-alarm fire, according to the reports.
“It is atypical and unexpected for fire hydrants to be out of service unless there is some identified issue that has been communicated,” Orange County Fire Authority officials said in statement Friday in response to questions about the incident reports. “Most fire engines carry 500 gallons of water, and as firefighters utilize that supply at approximately 150 gallons-a-minute, supplemental water sources such as working fire hydrants can be critical to fire suppression.”
More than 70 firefighters, helicopters and water tenders were brought in, but just after 6 a.m. officials called off efforts to extinguish the fire and decided to let it burn itself out.
The burning blimp hangar emitted heavy metals and asbestos into the air and rained debris down around the property, shutting down schools and parks. The city of Tustin launched a massive cleanup effort to rid neighborhoods of the debris. The Navy, which owns the 85-acre site, is still finalizing a plan for how it will clean up remains of the burnt hangar.
Twenty-one minutes after…
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