Fire damages local car dealer repair shop
By William Lundquist - Argus Observer
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 12:20 PM PDT
| |
| The General Farm Supply lot between Main Street and the Nyssa Post Office (above) has been cleared, but it is still the subject of efforts to determine the extent of contamination from past uses as a gas station. |
Ontario - Fire swept through the service bays of Hanigan Motors in Ontario Sunday morning, leaving the car dealership’s general manager Kevin Hanigan grateful that he had another car business in Payette to take up the slack.
Ontario Fire & Rescue Chief Terry Mairs said someone saw the smoke and flagged down a police officer, who called in the fire at 9:21 a.m.
The fire department responded with two engines, a ladder truck, three support vehicles and 15 firefighters. Fire crews remained on the scene until noon.
Hanigan said his insurance company is conducting an investigation and has not yet determined the cause of the fire. Mairs said a suspected source of the fire was one of the two vehicles destroyed in the blaze: a late model Chevrolet Tahoe that had been brought in because of electrical problems with its gauges. The fire appeared to have burned hotter in the vehicle’s engine compartment than anywhere else.
The fire also damaged hydraulic lifts and mechanics’ tool drawers, and even spread into the attic, where firefighters had to chop through the ceiling to extinguish the flames.
“It very well could have burned the place down,” Mairs said.
Hanigan agreed.
“We were lucky. Well, maybe you couldn’t call it luck, but it could have been a lot worse,” he said.
He also praised the fire department.
“They were great. They got here quickly and put it out quickly,” Hanigan said.
There was no estimate of the damage, but Hanigan said the destruction will be covered by insurance. Some work can still be done in the part of the service department that was not damaged, he said, but Hanigan’s real ace in the hole is his other dealership in Payette.
Not only will the dealership honor all its service appointments, he said, but he encouraged customers not to postpone appointments because of the fire. He said customers can drop off their vehicles at the Ontario dealership to be shuttled to the Payette dealership where the Ontario mechanics are now working.
Shae wrote on Apr 21, 2009 11:57 AM: