Camarillo Medical Building Damaged in Fire : Disaster: Doctors and dentists scramble to cancel appointments and find new work sites.

Hundreds of Camarillo residents had doctor and dentist appointments canceled Wednesday after fire caused $3 million in damage at a private medical building near St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital.

Four firefighters who suffered minor injuries were treated at the scene, but no occupants of the building were hurt.

The three-alarm blaze gutted about seven offices in the two-story building, which included dialysis and physical therapy centers. Every office in the 19-suite building sustained damage, authorities said.

Dentists and doctors in the Courtyard building at 3801 Las Posas Road spent Wednesday scrambling to reach their patients and find new office space.

Even those offices not damaged by the fire will be forced to close for a few days because of smoke and water damage. Patients of the more than 20 doctors, dentists and therapists in the building will be forced in the next few weeks to go to other offices, delay appointments, or find new doctors.

“We have another office in Oxnard, but it’s still going to affect us really badly,” said Larry Brown, a physical therapist who has had an office at the Courtyard for over two years and employs eight people there. “We’re waiting to see if we can get the appointment book so we can contact people.”

Firefighters said the blaze would not have caused so much damage if the 13-year-old building had been outfitted with sprinklers. The 40,844-square-foot building was constructed in 1981, the year before a county ordinance was passed requiring commercial buildings to have sprinklers.

“The damage would have been significantly less,” said Sandi Wells, spokeswoman for the Fire Department. “It would have kept the fire right in the area where it originated.”

Firefighters said it was difficult to fight the blaze because the building’s tile roof contained a lot of the heat, and was difficult for firefighters to punch holes in.

“It was a pressure cooker in there,” Ventura County Fire Capt. Gary Young said.

The fire was caused by a failure in electrical wiring between the first and second floors of the building, a Fire Department spokeswoman said.

A few hours after the fire was first reported at 5:45 a.m., doctors and their insurance agents were on scene to assess the damage. In the afternoon, firefighters allowed some tenants to return to their offices to retrieve appointment books and medical files.

“We do root canals, so it’s something people might not mind avoiding,” said Dr. Gregory Roda, who sees about 15 patients a day. “I’ve been getting pages all day from colleagues offering office space and other kinds of help.”

Roda, who gets his patients from other dentists’ referrals, said he is not taking any new patients for now, and hopes to establish temporary office space in Camarillo.

Dr. Michael McCarthy, who moved into the building in January and remodeled his office for about $400,000, said he and his partner, Phil Snow, made arrangements to move back to their old office on North Loop Drive in Camarillo.

Their practice sees about 50 to 60 patients a day, McCarthy said, and he wants as little disruption as possible. McCarthy said he hoped to recover some of his equipment Wednesday afternoon in order to set up shop in his old office as early as Wednesday night.

“I’m still kind of in shock over the whole thing,” McCarthy said, as he stared at the burned building.

The 20 patients who receive dialysis treatments at the Camarillo Kidney Dialysis office are being temporarily rerouted to the Conejo Valley Renal Center in Thousand Oaks, officials said.

“Those patients who did show up for treatments, we made sure were going to be OK without dialysis for the day, and we sent them home,” said Ray Ronquillo, area manager for National Medical Care, which owns the Camarillo Kidney Dialysis office.

Ronquillo called the fire “a minor setback for the facility,” which sustained only minor water damage. Ronquillo hopes to reopen by Friday.

Dr. Michael Morrissette’s office received only minor smoke damage and his office manager Sue Casedy said they plan to reopen for business Friday.

Casedy said she canceled 19 dental appointments for Wednesday and Thursday, and some patients were not upset at all.

One woman, who was scheduled to have several teeth pulled, told Casedy, “Oh goody, I get a reprieve.”