Near total loss

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Heard about the Sylmar fires currently in Ca? The Angeles Shooting Ranges AND The Los Angels Silhouette Club are a near complete loss. ASR is a 100 acre public shooting complex and is the location of the silhouette club. ASR was a complete shooting facility hosting many disciplines in handgun, rifle, bow, trap, sporting clays & more. ASR lost the main office, all classrooms, vehicles, storage areas. Only thing left at ASR is several hundred feet of covered firing line and the reloading store with probably a half million in inventory. Sporting clays ranges lost literally everything, all buildings, trap machines, equipment, everything. At LASC the 200 foot covered firing line remains but near everything else is gone including office, enclosed patio area, storage buildings.

I spent over 30 years of my life building, maintaining and running that range and it's gone in a morning.
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Rick

Moderator
Staff member
An unbelievable loss. It's the only full service outdoor range within several hours driving time right next to a metropolis of around 12 million people.
 

KHornet

Well-Known Member
Huge loss, will be difficult if not impossible to replace.
Sorry to hear this Rick!

Paul
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Tremendous damage other than the range. As of Tuesday night 30 homes burned to the ground, it's a rural area and dozens of horses have died, some burned to death still in the barn. Fire is still 100% uncontained and no doubt the number of houses has soared since last night. The fire spread to over 10,000 acres in a matter of hours fed by wind gusts of up to 70 mph.. Fire broke out at 3:40 AM and overwhelmed entire neighborhoods before anyone knew it was happening. Zero percent containment as I type and wind still blowing.
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fiver

Well-Known Member
M and M lost their entire building, guns, reloading supply's, everything.
some of the guy's got up a go fund me thing going but I doubt it will be enough to re-build.
the shot gun guy's were talking about this yesterday.
 

Ian

Notorious member
What devastation. From the descriptions, anything near a tree burned.

lasc range.png
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Hopefully they have enough dedicated shooters who will support reconstruction. Not going to be back up any time soon.

Rick, if the LASC is looking for help with costs let me know.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
I really feel for the loss .

Just a reason to over insure for the unlikely .
Funny how tomorrow a 25,000 gallon grey water tank and $500 in pipe ,rain birds and a bugs and straffin' garbage pump will look pretty good for irrigation ..........and building protection .

Damned shame to loose such places , I don't suppose there's much hope of getting building permits again is there .
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Actually RB there are several such water tanks spread around the property with fire hose attachment near the bottom. Big problem though, takes people to operate the hoses and in 70 mph winds at 3:40 in the morning the fire spread so fast there was no chance. Main range office buildings had sprinklers, entire property on well water and one of the first casualties was the power lines & poles.

Ian, little in the way of trees, what trees there were was planted at the range. Entire area is mountain terrain covered by sage brush so dense ya can't walk through it. Anyone not familiar with dry sage brush it burns very similar to an open can of gasoline.

A tremendous amount of brush clearing around the range property is a constant ongoing project but big problem there too. With the brush literally exploding in balls of fire 70 mph winds sends the sparks and burning debris spreading for miles ahead of the fire starting new fires that then do the same thing.
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RBHarter

West Central AR
Been there in that fire . Well similar conditions . 10 yr as a VFF .
We were out to a house fire in 60 gusting 90 . Then we went to a ranch and the winds picked up and got serious about blowing . Saved the house and about 98% of the ranch . I actually saw a chunk of what was believed to be railroad tie roll into a wash , just a near white hot, seemed like a basketball sized fire ball rolling along at 40-50 mph .
The next day the roll tape in the local remote weather station was found with the needle on top of the roll , it's gauge range went to 140 mph best guess was a 160+ sustained gust of 30-60 seconds to get it stuck ..... Blowing pea gravel anyone .

A groundskeeper perhaps .
Elevated tanks and popoffs ........

Probably a body dump ......or a smoker that had to do it outside and lost a cherry .

On a lighter there can't be much left to burn along the coastal range . Hasn't almost everything from LAX to SFO burned in the last 4-5 yr ?

Just to be certain I'm in no way belittling any of the events or losses if it seems like I am it's just seeing it over and over and over and it seems like it's always the same . Part of what scares me about the pending move . If a brush fire rips through our neighborhood combined losses would show a profit . Sure we get shaken from time to time . But I'm about to move into 10 million acres of forest that's only as far away as I keep it cut back ........ Earthquakes ? Call the glass shop and sweep up . Flooding , new sheetrock , some flooring maybe just a squeegee and fresh paint . Fire is like the winter cold , if there's a place for it to get in it will , then it's over , frozen or boiled and there's generally nothing left but an unsalvageable mess that could take months to clean up and yr to restore .
 

popper

Well-Known Member
Terrible loss. some of the guy's got up a go fund me thing going Link? Used to try to go shooting (60s) in the hills there but always saw posted no shooting, fire hazards.
Like basic - light an oil fire in a steel building and let us put it out. No fun for sure. wife's nephew is a FF in SF, been worn out from all the fires.
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Sorry for the lose of your range and facilities. Keep us posted for donations for a rebuild! Ric
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Just so people don't get the wrong impression, I'm no longer in CA. No longer running the club but I spent well over 30 years building it, running it, nearly living at it. Still know many people there. I doubt anyone knows this quick what the game plan will be but once decisions have been made there can't be much doubt money will be a top concern. The club was built over about 35 years with nearly total volunteer labor and much donated materials. I'll post updates as I learn what's happening.
 
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smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
Smoke was heavy around us last night. My boys high school is closed today. Although my pucker factor is a bit elevated, we still have quite a bit of city between us and the fire northeast of us. Other fires are north, south or downwind of us. Going to be a nervous next few days.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Similar sort of thing happened in Texas a few years back. Long drought set the stage and half of west Texas burned (similar terrain to LASC location). Lots of other areas in piney east Texas burned too, it was a bad situation even without 70 mph hot wind whipping it up. Unless you keep the low, desert brush burned off, it will happen again, but unfortunately if you do that, there's nothing to hold the dirt and you have a whole other set of problems.
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
We had some very good rains last winter. As a result there's probably 30% more brush than in previous years and we haven't seen much rain in the last 7 months.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Here's a few pics, I am on a brand new computer and don't yet have any software installed so cannot re-size these picture, they're pretty big. Sorry. Because of the size of the pics I'll only post three for now, should give a good idea.

Inside the stat office.

Inside stat office.jpg

Inside enclosed patio/kitchen area.

Inside patio.jpg

The patio/office.

Stat office - patio.jpg