A beleaguered shooting range on the outskirts of Burlington has been reduced to cinders in a late-night inferno that has left a lot of unanswered questions for local fire and law enforcement officials.
According to the office of Alamance County’s sheriff, this after-hours blaze broke out at Rad Range Training and Events Center at some point after this shooting range had shut down for the evening on Saturday.
Byron Tucker, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, recalled that an emergency call at about 12:02 on Sunday brought fire crews from several local departments to the gun range’s premises at 1746 Jim Barnwell Road. Tucker added, however, that the collective efforts of these firefighters could do only so much to preserve the business given the extent of the blaze.
“It was burned to the ground,” Tucker went on to concede. “Fortunately, there weren’t any injuries because nobody was there at the time.”
Rudy Cartassi, the owner of this firearms-themed venue, recalled that he and his wife were in Danville, Virginia when this conflagration broke out on his property. He added that he was saddened and stunned by the scene of utter devastation which he confronted when he returned to Alamance County after the fire.
“It looks like a hellfire missile has dropped on the place,” he recalled. “It’s gone; there’s nothing left.”
According to Tucker, the circumstances of this blaze have prompted both the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation and the N.C. State Fire Marshal’s office to launch inquiries into its cause. He added that, at this point, neither agency has reached a conclusion about whether the fire was accidental or the result of foul play.
Cartassi acknowledges that investigators have advised him to limit his public remarks on the fire in light of these two concurrent inquiries. The gun range’s proprietor is nevertheless eager to dispel any suggestion that he might’ve had something to do with the blaze.
“I was at Danville, Virginia at a casino with my wife, trying to relax because I was scheduled to be in court today,” Cartassi went on to explain, as he alluded to a civil court hearing that took place on Monday in an ongoing court battle between the gun range’s owner and two of his neighbors.
“Somebody did this,” he added, “and you can throw a stone out there and hit someone who hates me.”
Cartassi’s gun range has, indeed, been a magnet for controversy since he purchased the property that would become Rad Range’s HQ in the fall of 2021.
This 23.6-acre parcel along Jim Barnwell Road had previously been home to low-key, historically-themed gun club with a penchant for the American Revolution. Yet, the heightened noise and accelerated schedule of Cartassi’s more modern establishment soon become an ongoing irritation for some neighboring residents, who eventually took their gripes before Alamance County’s commissioners.
The county’s all-Republican governing board initially balked at any policy changes in response to these noise-related complaints. Its members nevertheless became more receptive as the gun range’s critics shifted their target to the apparent proliferation of stray bullets from the gun range’s grounds.
In the spring of 2023, the commissioners came close to passing an ordinance in response to this criticism that would’ve banned errant gunfire which crosses private property lines. They nevertheless scrapped this proposed restriction due to concerted pressure from Cartassi and the owners of other local gun ranges.
Then, a few months ago, the county’s legal department brought forth another, even more wide-ranging regulatory proposal in response to the continued complaints about Rad. Although Cartassi replied to these rules with his usual vigor, his fellow gun range proprietors were more circumspect – and several openly blamed Rad for the county’s repeated gambits to regulate outdoor gun ranges.
The commissioners eventually sent the county attorney back to the drawing board with instructions to broker a compromise between Rad’s critics and the owners of area gun ranges. In the meantime, Cartassi has found himself fighting on a second front as a neighboring couple has ramped up a legal action that they initially filed against Rad in 2024.
As he has continued to defend his business, Cartassi admits that he has become increasingly concerned about the hostile and, at times violent, tone of his more vociferous critics. He concedes that this animosity has taken on truly grim connotations in light of the fire that ravaged his business over the weekend.
“This rhetoric has been going on and going on, and it’s reached a tipping point,” he insists.
To add another layer of complexity to this case, Cartassi acknowledges that he had been on the cusp of selling his business when this weekend’s fire blew even this plan for a graceful exit to kingdom come.
“I had poured four to five years into this thing that I’ll never get back,” he went on to explain. “So, I was like, here’s the white flag, we’re done.
“I had multiple offers and then, this happens,” he added. “I’d like to say a lot more, but until the police do their investigation, I can’t comment on it.”
