Fallbrook

Fire destroyed a 99-year-old wood-frame paint store in downtown Fallbrook Wednesday morning and 100 to 200 gallons of latex paint spilled into a creek that feeds into a lake on Camp Pendleton, authorities said.

Cheri Eir, a spokeswoman for San Diego County Health Services, said the lake is not a recreational area and is not directly used for drinking water, but some of the paint could end up in water wells that supply the camp.

The water was contaminated after paint cans exploded in the fire and the paint trickled into a storm drain that empties into Fallbrook Creek. The creek runs through the U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot before it reaches Lake O’Neill on Camp Pendleton.

Eir said county health officials are monitoring the situation, but it is unlikely that the contaminated water--if it reaches the wells on the camp at all--would cause anything worse than a stomachache, she said.

Firefighters from the North County Fire Protection District and Camp Pendleton responded to the fire at 5 a.m. and had it under control within an hour, but little was left of the building but burned merchandise. Officials said the building and its contents were valued at nearly $500,000.

Three firefighters were slightly injured: one complained of eye irritation, one suffered a strained ankle, and one had respiratory problems.

Russell Elam, vice president of the Fallbrook Historical Society, mourned the loss of the building, which stood at the main intersection in town. “It was the most antique-looking building in town. There are buildings just as old, but they all had new faces put on them. There will probably be a lot of hollering about this,” Elam said.

The Westfall family ran a hardware story in the building until it was bought by Ray Schekel in 1951, Elam said.

Schekel ran the store until 1970. Since then, the building has been bought and sold several times and put to a variety of uses, including being used as the town library after the old library burned down. Until Wednesday morning it was operating as a paint store again.

Fire officials are investigating the cause of the blaze, but said there is no reason to believe it was arson.