$315,000 Country Club Fire Ruins 90 Golf Carts

CORONA —  Fire destroyed about 90 golf carts and a building at the Mountain View Country Club, a spokesman for the state Department of Forestry said Monday.

Damage was estimated at about $315,000. The club is in Coronita, an unincorporated area west of Corona.

“The cart shed was totaled,” said George Lu of Fullerton, one of the club’s owners. “It was burned completely down.” Both the building and the carts are covered by insurance, Lu added.

An employee noticed the fire about 45 minutes after closing for the day on Sunday, said Tainan Wang, the country club’s general manager. “One of our bartenders . . . walked out and saw the smoke coming from the cart shed,” Wang said. “That’s when he called the Fire Department.”

“I don’t have any idea how” the blaze began, Wang said. A “cart boy” was the last employee in the 900-square-foot shed, about half an hour before the fire was noticed, he added.

Engine companies from the City of Corona and the Naval Weapons Center in Norco helped firefighters from the Department of Forestry bring the fire under control in about half an hour.

The Forestry Department provides fire protection for unincorporated areas, including Coronita, under a contract with Riverside County.

“When I got to the scene, the building was totally engulfed in flames,” said Joaquin Silos, an engineer at the Forestry Department’s Corona station. By the time the flames were extinguished, only a small part of the shed’s frame still stood, he said.

The country club was open again on Monday, however, with golfers walking the links or using the 15 golf carts that had escaped damage. Twenty new carts had already arrived late Monday, Wang said.

Investigators estimated damage from the fire included $80,000 to the building and $225,000 for the carts. No injuries were reported.