AT LEAST 20 HOMES DESTROYED IN LAGUNA NIGUEL FIRE
A brush fire fueled by intense coastal winds roared into an upscale Laguna Niguel subdivision Wednesday evening as it ballooned to about 200 acres, burning at least 20 homes and forcing many to f lee.
Cold winds coming from the Pacific Ocean pushed the Coastal fire up a rugged canyon, sending embers into homes and sparking spot fires in the Coronado Pointe area.
Television footage showed a row of sprawling, red-tiled homes at the tip of the canyon on fire, with smoke coming from several other homes deeper in the neighborhood.
Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy said at a Wednesday night news conference that an estimated 20-plus homes had been destroyed. Winds had died down a bit, Fennessy said, but not before pushing the blaze to 200 acres.
The destruction underscored the year-round danHighway, ger of fires in Southern California, even in cool conditions. Unlike many wildfires in the region, the Coastal fire was fanned not by Santa Ana winds from the desert but by strong gusts coming from the Pacific Ocean.
The National Weather Service recorded strong ocean winds throughout Wednesday afternoon across Orange County, including gusts as high as 30 mph in parts of the county, said Brandt Maxwell, a weather service meteorologist in San Diego.
The winds blew in with a dry air mass and didn’t carry much moisture, and humidity remained low, which probably helped spread the flames, Maxwell said.
By around 7 p.m., hundreds of homes in Laguna Niguel had been evacuated. The blaze broke out in Aliso Canyon, near the South Orange County Wastewater Authority treatment plant.
Firefighting vehicles raced south on Pacific Coast entering through the Ranch, a local country club and golf course.
Authorities blocked off the street to other traffic and were also blocking off Nyes Place.
“It’s so heartbreaking,” said Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett, whose district includes Laguna Niguel. “It started as three to five acres and then it went to 40 acres in like a millisecond and went out of control from there.”
The wind has been one factor in the spread, but the size of the homes has also made containing the blaze difficult, Bartlett said.
“When you take a look at the size of the homes, there’s just so much combustible material that they burn fast, and then the wind starts and the flames can just leap from house to house,” she said.
With very little rainfall across the county, dry vegetation also may have fueled the fire’s spread, said the weather service’s Maxwell.
Between October and April, Southern California’s rainy season, less than 7 inches of rain fell at nearby John Wayne Airport, nearly 40 percent less than normal, Maxwell said. The previous year, less than 4 1⁄2 inches fell.
Visibility in the firefight has been hampered by wind-driven smoke, Bartlett said, adding that she knew firefighters were doing everything possible from the ground and air.
The winds pushed the fire into the Coronado Pointe neighborhood so fast that residents fled without having time to grab many items, she said.
“People really need to heed that message because it’s so difficult for firefighters when they’re trying to put out fires and also save people who have stayed in their houses when they should have gone,” Bartlett said. “The last thing we want is for anybody to have their life in danger.”