Air-Conditioner Fire Hits May Co. at Valencia Mall : Retailers: Employees readying store for opening are evacuated. Extent of damage to merchandise is not yet known.

A fire in an air-conditioning unit Monday spewed smoke throughout a May Co. department store in Valencia as workers prepared the building for the opening next month of the Santa Clarita Valley’s first major shopping mall.

The fire forced the evacuation of about 100 employees, but no one was injured, said Battalion Chief Floyd Hoffman of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The cause of the fire in the rooftop unit was being investigated, he said.

The amount of damage to clothing and other merchandise in the heavily stocked store was not immediately known by May Co. executives. They said the store’s preview shopping day and charity benefit will take place as scheduled on Sept. 3, in advance of the formal opening Sept. 24 of Valencia Town Center.

The fire is also not expected to delay the scheduled opening of the Sears store and a 10-theater movie complex at the mall in early September, said Marlee Lauffer, a spokeswoman for Newhall Land & Farming Co., a co-developer of the mall.

The basement of May Co.’s two-level, 125,000-square-foot facility--one of three anchor stores, along with J. C. Penney and Sears--escaped damage, as did the rest of the 750,000-square-foot mall, firefighters said.

Firefighters deployed three 5-horsepower blowers to rid the building of smoke after most store employees were sent home for the day. Sheets of clear plastic remained draped over clothing and other merchandise on the main level, where a powerful odor lingered long after firefighters had left with their blowers.

Most employees departed before the firefighters completed their work at about 1:30 p.m.

It was not known whether the employees would return to work today, a May Co. spokesman said.

Four units of the County Fire Department, which serves the city of Santa Clarita, responded to the alarm at 11:27 a.m. and extinguished the blaze 30 minutes later, Fire Capt. Jerry Powers said.

Damage to the air-conditioning unit appeared limited to about 50 paper filters, each resembling a two-foot cube, and a fire-detection system within the unit, Powers said.

The air-conditioning unit, one of two atop the store, occupies a large metal structure, Powers said. About one-third of the unit was engulfed in flames before six firefighters extinguished the blaze, he said.