After 20 years, firefighters recall Old Tucson inferno

Twenty years ago today, an arson fire ravaged Old Tucson Studios, destroying more than 40 percent of the historic movie set and theme park.

The fire, which remains unsolved, broke out shortly before 7 p.m. and tore through dry, wooden buildings — spreading by wind — sending up thick black smoke and turning the western sky orange for hours.

The blaze destroyed nearly 40 buildings in the 360-acre park, causing an estimated $10 million in damage, authorities said. The park, which is owned by Pima County, is 12 miles west of Tucson at 201 S. Kinney Road, on the western edge of the Tucson Mountains.

No one was seriously hurt in the fire that for many Tucson-area firefighters was their “career fire.”

Among those is Capt. Steve Medina, 55, of Drexel Heights Fire District, who was off-duty at the time. But the black smoke he could see from his house sent him int o the fire station, and he headed to Old Tucson.

“Three of us boarded that truck, and we encountered traffic that slowed us down,” recalled Medina, explaining that motorists wanting to see the fire were clogging up South Kinney Road until Pima County sheriff’s deputies arrived to close off the road.

“The lack of water was a big problem,” said Medina, who began working the water supply — gathering tenders and setting up a relay operation to fill tanks with water for firefighters battling the blaze. A hydrant was near Tucson Estates.

Drexel Heights Capt. Scott Bird, 53, was among the first to arrive at the scene and realized reinforcements were needed badly. Command staff members began “calling in the whole county an city to help,” including personnel from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

Bird began fighting the fire, trying to save buildings from roaring flames that sent embers flying throughout the Western theme park, but the lack of water hampered the efforts.

“One thing that still stands out is seeing buildings destroyed from just radiant heat from the fire,” Bird said. “To see that much fire out there, and how fast it moved was a devastating event. I hope I never have a fire that big again.”

Drexel Heights Capt. Hugh McCrystal, 60, worked the fire for about eight hours, and then returned to monitor hot spots, a duty firefighters did for days while investigators went through rubble. “One fire like that is plenty,” McCrystal said.

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Gary Bynum, 57, a retired division chief for Drexel Heights, battled the fire with four other firefighters near propane tanks. “The fire surrounded us,” Bynum said. “There was a lot of open space, and we could get away from collapsing structures. A major propane tank began to vent, but we had no safe access out of the area. We hunkered down and waited. We were using a 750-gallon tank of water sparingly to make it last. We were relieved hours later by Tucson Fire (Department) when it was safe for them to move in,” Bynum recalled.

“It was a tinderbox, and the only building that had sprinklers was the sound stage, but sprinklers are not effective when the fire starts on the outside,” he said. The sound stage was destroyed.

The park had no fire hydrants, nor a firefighting system. It had faulty water pumps and water hoses that weren’t long enough to reach some of the fires. Also, a main water tank was not accessible because of propane tanks next to it, and firefighters feared an explosion. Water also was fed during the fire by a 100,000-gallon tank at the Gilbert Ray Campground, about four miles west of Old Tucson.

The blaze began on the northwest side of the park — in an exhibition and movie set area that was called White Oaks — one of the oldest sections of the park. The fire began in a building that served as a saloon setting where acts were performed.

Robert Shelton, who first set foot in Old Tucson in 1959, when it was a dilapidated movie location. He formed Old Tucson Development Co. and helped mold it into a famous tourist attraction.

Shortly after the fire in an interview with the Star, Shelton lamented that much of the park’s history was irreplaceable. Old Tucson started as a movie set in 1939 built by Columbia Pictures for the feature “Arizona,” an epic Western film starring Jean Arthur and William Holden.

Seven of 11 investigators who worked on the case were with what was then called the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Nearly six months after the fire and thousands of leads later, the case stopped being active; all the leads were exhausted.

The case is closed, but it can be reopened if new leads come up, said Deputy Tracy Suitt, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

In 1997, the theme park reopened. More than 200 workers helped rebuild the park, which included 16 new structures with air conditioning and sprinkler systems. Seven fire hydrants were put in the park, and new water tanks were put on the site; they store about 200,000 gallons of water for fire protection.

The county and the state Fire Marshal’s Office both now do inspections of the park.