Fire Damages Billionaire's Calif. Home

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) â€” The home of billionaire Silicon Valley pioneer William Hewlett was damaged by fire, but no one was hurt. <br><br>The three-alarm blaze was extinguished just before midnight Sunday,

Monday, November 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) â€” The home of billionaire Silicon Valley pioneer William Hewlett was damaged by fire, but no one was hurt.

The three-alarm blaze was extinguished just before midnight Sunday, about 3 1/2 hours after it was reported, fire information officer Tony Spitaleri said.

The cause of the blaze and the extent of the damage were under investigation Monday. Hewlett was at home at the time of the fire, Spitaleri said, but he did not know how many other people were there.

Hewlett, now 87, and David Packard, who died in 1996, started their company with a borrowed $538 in a Palo Alto garage in 1939. A coin toss settled whose name went first.

The company began making electronic test equipment and later branched into calculators, computers and printers. H-P now has 86,000 employees worldwide, with more than $42 billion in revenue in fiscal 1999.

In September, Forbes magazine listed Hewlett as the 26th richest American, with an estimated net worth of $9 billion.