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An iconic filming spot for Disney, Warner Bros., and Paramount caught fire overnight, becoming completely engulfed in flames and destroying the giant 17-story location.
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Credit: X/ScottGustin
A three-alarm blaze tore through a historic hangar located at a former air base in Orange County in Southern California in the early hours of Tuesday morning. At approximately 1:00 a.m. local time, a fire broke out inside the hangar, located near Valencia Avenue and Armstrong Road in the town of Tustin, California, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
Ground crews immediately went to work to fight the fire, but the blaze was so enormous that firefighters were forced to attempt to quell the flames from the ground and from the air, as authorities called out at least one helicopter to help douse the 17-story structure. Responders were already faced with the arduous task of fighting the blaze with very little water on the property. As such, crews had to affix long hoses to hydrants on nearby streets and pump water onto the property to battle the flames.
Scott Gustin with Nexstar Media posted a video of the fire on Tuesday morning on X, formerly Twitter.
The North Tustin Hangar in Orange County caught fire overnight.
The two hangars have been used in movies including Pearl Harbor, Star Trek, and Austin Powers. The hangars were also featured in a commercial for The Main Street Electrical Parade.
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) November 7, 2023
“The overall goal is to put this fire out safely without compromising anyone’s safety,” said Captain Thanh Nguyen. “The good news is that there are no civilians working in the area. So, we’re going to take it at a good pace to actually be able to extinguish this fire.”
Captain Nguyen couldn’t say whether any items were inside the hangar at the time the blaze ignited.
The commotion from firefighters attempting to put out the blaze woke nearby residents, some of whom came out of their homes to see the flames.
The hangar, still burning after sunrise/Credit: ABC
“I woke up and heard all these helicopters flying over, and I looked out and saw the smoke and the flames,” said Steve Kinney, who lives nearby. “These things have been here for as long as I’ve been around, and it’s hard to believe that this one’s probably going away. To lose these–we’ll never see anything like this again.”
The North Tustin hangar is one of the largest wooden structures ever constructed–one of two air hangars originally built during World War II in 1942 at the former Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, California. It is a historic landmark that has also been featured in several television shows and in films, including Pearl Harbor, Star Trek, and Austin Powers.
It was also used in a commercial produced by Disney for the Main Street Electrical Parade.
Credit: Disney
The mammoth blaze carved out a majority of the structure’s roof and gouged out the inside of the hangar, which is reportedly currently owned by the United States Department of the Navy.
Firefighters said that there was no need to evacuate any of the nearby residents from their homes during the night. But the cause of the blaze is still unknown, and an investigation into what started the massive fire inside the hangar remains under investigation.
As this is a developing story, more details will be shared about the North Tustin hangar fire as they become available.
