Evacuation orders were lifted Thursday afternoon as firefighters continued to get the upper hand over a wind-driven brush fire that broke out in the pre-dawn hours near a gated community of multimillion-dollar, ocean-view homes in the Laguna Beach area.
Flames threatened the Emerald Bay neighborhood that backs up to the hilly, wilderness areas west of Laguna Beach starting at around 4 am Amid strong winds, the fire gobbled up 145 acres in just a few hours.
By 9 am, fire officials said they’d surrounded about 5% of the burning area.
The fire “is not spreading rapidly at this time,” Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy told reporters gathered at Main Beach. “There are no communities immediately adjacent to where the fire is burning at this time.”
Related: This blaze quickly brings back memories of the horrific ’93 Laguna Beach fire
Officials did not say where exactly the fire was first spotted, but a few hours later Fennessy said crews were trying to keep the blaze between Boat and Emerald Canyon roads, two routes that go deeper into the hills above Emerald Bay.
The chief said the fire was the only major one burning in the state. So resources from other agencies were immediately available to help put the fire down, he said.
With parts of California still emerging from a cold, mostly dry winter, February is early for a large fire to be breaking out in the state. The blaze near Emerald Bay erupted in warm, dry conditions not typical for the middle of winter, Fennessy said.
“We no longer have a fire season, we have a fire year,” he said. “If this is a sign of things to come — we’re in for a long year ahead.”
The fire forced evacuation orders for nearby homes in Emerald Bay and Irvine Cove, closed part of Pacific Coast Highway and led to the cancellation of classes at an elementary school. The highway was later reopened and the orders were lifted Thursday afternoon, though evacuation warnings remained in place and county and state parks in the fire zone were closed.
No one has been injured. And there were no reports of damage to any buildings.
MORE: This map shows where the Emerald fire is burning
Five helicopters, two with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, were making water drops, assisting firefighters on the ground. Two dozers were working to create containment lines, Fennessy said.
The first call about the fire came in at 4:10 am The initial response, the chief said, was robust “with several engines and aircraft.”
At one point, as the fire got closer to Emerald Bay, firefighters placed “almost an engine in front of every home.”
The blaze eventually moved away from those homes.
“We got lucky in that regard,” Fennessey said.
It is unclear what ignited the fire.
The Laguna Beach Unified School District announced it had canceled classes at all district schools out of an abundance of caution, school officials said.
Laguna Beach opened up the Laguna Beach Community and The Susi Q Center for those affected by the mandatory evacuations, Mayor Sue Kempf said.
Even though high temperatures and winds were anticipated for this afternoon, Fennessy said there were now enough resources in place to be comfortable. Plus, the wind died down at least for a while.
“Given the weather, we’re in really good shape,” he said. “The fire is not spreading rapidly at this time, there’s very little growth on the edges.”
The National Weather Service says overnight winds should pick up again at about 10 pm, but more firefighting headway is expected by then and bulldozers are creating a “significant firebreak,” said OCFA spokesman Steve Concialdi.
Emerald Bay and the gated community next door, Irvine Cove, both in unincorporated Orange County, have some of the priciest residential real estate in the county. Billionaire Warren Buffet has owned and sold two homes in Emerald Bay. Oceanfront homes in Irvine Cove have frequently topped lists of the county’s most expensive sales of the year.
Diane Mello, 54, moved into Laguna Beach in 1993, shortly before the last major fire in that city, which destroyed hundreds of homes.
She immediately thought of that experience after receiving a text about the Emerald fire at about 5:15 am Thursday.
Mello went outside and saw a large gray plume rising from the hills across the street from her home.
“The sky was dark and very smokey,” Mello said. “You definitely had to have your mask on. And you could see the ash falling from the sky.”
She and her husband were supposed to visit their son in Seattle but immediately decided to cancel their flight.
They then gathered their passports, IDs and other valuable documents and packed their car. Mello was about to leave her husband and was helping her spray down their property, when she realized that Thursday’s fire did not appear to be spreading in the same, uncontrolled manner as the blaze she remembered over 20 years ago.
At that point, they decided to stay in the area to monitor the situation.
“If it starts to come down here and we have to leave, we’ll leave,” Mello said while standing at the entrance to Irvine Cove and PCH as helicopters dropped water on the charred hills behind the community. “You can’t argue with fire.”
In 1993, the Laguna Beach Fire — one of the most devastating in Orange County history — started in the canyon, spread to Emerald Bay and burned to the ocean. It hit El Morro Beach Trailer Park, then moved on to the edge of Crystal Cove State Park, blew back into North Laguna, jumped Laguna Canyon Road at Big Bend and torched through dry brush in the canyon up to the Skyline Drive and Mystic Hills neighborhoods. .
The fire lasted less than a day but torched 441 homes, scorched 14,000 acres and left $528 million in damage.
One point of contention during the 1993 fire was the lack of available water for fire crews. Now, more than a quarter-century later, the city has greater access to water for dousing flames, homeowners must follow stricter guidelines, trees and vegetation must be removed from around homes to create more defensible space and firefighters have more technology.
Still, the city and its surrounding open space are designated by Cal Fire as a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.
There have been four fires in the last decade. One in 2012 that broke out in the vegetation-laden canyon above Ruby’s Diner, a 2015 fire in Laguna Canyon that erupted when power lines sparked and a fire in June 2018 in Aliso & Wood Canyons that scorched through 200 acres of wildland brush threatening dozens of Laguna Beach homes on the ridges above.
In 2019, the Laguna Beach City Council passed the first phase of a $166 million plan that will make the city safer against fire threats. The Fire Safety Mitigation plan was developed over seven months with data collected from trips to Paradise, the Northern California town virtually destroyed by the Camp Fire.
The fire department has expanded its fuel modification program — done by brush-eating goats and hand crews. And you have created a new city position for a fire inspector to oversee brush removal and serve as fire-preparedness resource for residents.
Power poles — in areas such as Bluebird Canyon, Coast Highway and Park Avenue — will be buried. Evacuation routes have been improved by adding signage and installing signals that can be turned green to aid in evacuations. The city also added fire detection cameras and two helicopter filling stations.
www.ocregister.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism