In wake of fire, company officials seek answers, prepare for the future

By RAY RODRIGUEZ - ARGUS OBSERVER
Sunday, July 22, 2007 12:08 AM PDT

A group of area residents lined the streets surrounding the fire that erupted at a Baker Packing Company lot Friday night in southeast Ontario. More than 50 firefighters from seven different area fire departments responded to the blaze late Friday night. The fire destroyed pallets and equipment at the company site.

ONTARIO - Watching part of his family-owned business reduced to smolder and ash late Friday night, Steve Baker, co-owner of Baker Packing Company in Ontario, could only stand back and think of the rebuilding process.

The damage was done.

And onion season is fast approaching.

The blaze consumed several thousand onion storage bins, pallets and a newly-built onion storage facility.

For Baker, the destruction means he will have to race to stay ahead of the fast-approaching onion season.

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“We’re going to have to get these bins replaced before the growers begin to harvest their onions,” Baker said. “I think there’s somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 bins and maybe another 5-to-10,000 onion pallets. Maybe even more on the pallets. I’m not even sure. I’ll have to reassess things in the morning (Saturday) and find out for sure what we had in there. A lot of bins have to be replaced in a short period of time.”

Baker’s wife received a 911 call at 11:30 p.m. Friday and was told to head down to his facility, which is situated on Southeast Ninth Avenue in Ontario.

“My wife answered the phone, and they said there’s a fire at your facility and we think it’s big. We just rushed down here,” Baker said.

Once he arrived, Baker said there was not much he could do but stand and watch as a business he and several others have owned for 20 years disappeared in a cascade of red and orange flames.

“You don’t worry about anything with a fire this big,” he said. “Looks like they got the fire pretty well contained. The structures around here look like they’re pretty safe. Looks like the damage is pretty much limited to our seven acres here.”

No fire damage was inflicted on surrounding structures and a small blaze spread to a brush area across the street by nearby Trebar, a semi-truck maintenance facility.

Baker said now he has to meet with an insurance agent to survey the damage and set a timetable for early next week to take a course of action.

“We’ll have to get with the insurance agent and see what’s what,” Baker said. “We were also building an onion storage area in that facility, but once everything cools down we’ll have to take a look and see what’s what. It will probably be Monday or Tuesday before we finally know what we’re up against totally.”

While a cause was still unknown, Baker said there was no way a fire of this magnitude could have been prevented.

“I don’t know how you can prevent this from happening,” Baker said. “I really don’t know. You got somebody that wants to play around with fire or whatever the case may be. I don’t know how you stop something like that. It’s just an unfortunate circumstance. That’s all we can do now. We can’t stand around moping about it. We’ll charge forward. We still have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Early Saturday, co-owner Jerry Baker said the fire puts them in a tough situation as they strive to prepare for the harvest in the next few months, but he said he is confident it will get done.

“We got a lot of good personnel that’s worked for us a long time, and they’ll work hard and get it all back together,” he said.