Flames streaked into the night sky Saturday as a fire ripped
through one of the oldest buildings at the Hollister Municipal
Airport.
Columns of light gray and white smoke poured through gaping
holes in the smoldering roof at 195 Astro Drive as about 30
firefighters from four departments
– Hollister, San Benito County, San Juan Bautista and Gilroy –
fought to contain the blaze, which burned for 2 1/2 hours until
about midnight.
Flames streaked into the night sky Saturday as a fire ripped through one of the oldest buildings at the Hollister Municipal Airport.
Columns of light gray and white smoke poured through gaping holes in the smoldering roof at 195 Astro Drive as about 30 firefighters from four departments – Hollister, San Benito County, San Juan Bautista and Gilroy – fought to contain the blaze, which burned for 2 1/2 hours until about midnight.
Members of the Monterey County Fire Investigation Team, made up of investigators from Seaside, North Monterey County and the California Department of Forestry, continued to look through the charred remains of the building today in hopes of determining what caused the fire.
“This is not being classified as an arson or accidental yet because we don’t have enough information to go on,” Hollister Fire Marshal Mike O’Connor said. “The building is considered a total loss.”
All that is known for sure is that the blaze started at about 9:23 p.m., O’Connor said.
A pair of counselors who were locking up the building following an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, saw smoke pouring through the roof just before it burst into flames. The counselors immediately called 911, O’Connor said.
The old wooden structure was quickly engulfed by flames throughout its center and rear sections, only to have its roof collapse at the middle.
The fire gutted the nearly 60-year-old building that served as a home, storage facility and meeting place for several organizations and businesses, including Soar Hollister, the Hollister Lions Club, McFadden Tax Service and the Hollister Airmen’s Association.
“We’ve all got to find new facilities now,” said Ruth Erickson, president of the Airmen’s Association. “It’s just a total mess. There’s a big hole in the middle where the roof was.”
For about the first half hour, all Erickson could do was stand on the eastern side of Highway 156 and watch the fire consume years of documents and rare artifacts dating back to the founding of the airport as police kept onlookers away from the building until firefighters had a better handle on the blaze.
Erickson was at home when she learned about the fire from another member of the Airmen’s Association, who hear the call on a police scanner.
“This building will obviously have to be pulled down because there’s no way you could save it,” she said.
With help from several firefighters, Erickson pulled some of the group’s artifacts out of the smoldering wreckage. But she said that may have been a futile gesture.
“A lot of it was just too waterlogged and other things had just too much smoke damage,” Erickson said.
She said she doesn’t know if the group will have a chance to look through the burnt remains to see if anything can be salvaged.
“The city will have to determine how safe the building is before we can go in,” Erickson said.
The building was constructed in 1943 as a bachelor officers quarters at what was then Naval Air Station Hollister. The U.S. Navy acquired title to the airport, formerly known as Turner Field, by eminent domain in March 1941 and turned it into a training base in support of Alameda Naval Air Station. The base, commissioned on June 26, 1943, was designed to house 200 to 300 Navy personnel.
