Postscript: Few Lasting Marks Left by Anaheim Firestorm

It stands innocuously at Loara Street and Juno Avenue, an undistinguished palm tree in an ordinary Anaheim neighborhood.

But three years ago this month, that tree sparked one of the worst fires in Southern California history. The fire left 1,500 people homeless, leveled 53 buildings and caused an estimated $50 million in damage.

Though officials determined that the palm tree was the culprit, it was only one link in a chain of events that combined to create ideal conditions for the April 21 firestorm.

The other ingredients were 60-m.p.h. Santa Ana winds, power-line sparks that ignited the fronds of the tree, and untreated wood shingles, the bone-dry roofing material with which most of the close-set apartment buildings were covered. Survivors and firefighters marveled that no one was seriously injured.

Remarkably, the fateful tree now stands taller than ever, with barely a scar. According to Fred Ramos, who lives across the street from the tree, it was saved when one of his neighbors, Steven Lake, climbed atop a van with a water hose to wet down the dry, smoking fronds.

“I was still in bed and I heard the ruckus,” Lake, now 23, remembered. “My mother was getting ready to go to work, and she heard there was a fire outside. We went out, and as we stood there and watched, a gust of wind came up and blew embers from the palm tree across the roofs to the apartments.”

Lake said he “just kind of stood on the hood (of a car) and squirted as high as I could reach.”

The tree survived unscathed but nearly every structure in the four-block-square, 17-acre area southwest of the tree burned to the ground.

The wind-whipped flames leapfrogged from one building to the next, officials said. It took more than 350 firefighters from Long Beach, Los Angeles and Orange County fire departments five hours to contain the blaze.

“The shock to us was that it took us that long to knock it down,” recalled Anaheim Asst. Fire Chief Ronald L. Evans, who was a commander at the scene of the fire. “It’s not something you forget when you have that many buildings burn down.”

Few physical scars remain as testament to the devastation. Bands of scorched bark still encircle the tall palm trees lining Palm Lane near Euclid Street, but otherwise the shrubbery and new landscaping bespeak only the first new green of California spring. New apartment complexes have risen from the ashes of their gutted predecessors, new tenants have moved in and a new shopping center is being built.

All the lawsuits filed against the city by insurance companies were settled by last year for more than $8.8 million, according to attorney Lee O’Connor of Ruston and Nance, the private law firm the city hired in the case. Other tenant lawsuits, however, still are pending, he said.

In the end, something good resulted from the fire: six days later, the Anaheim City Council passed an emergency ordinance banning untreated wood roofs on new construction. So the shingles gleaming from the roofs of the reconstructed buildings today not only are attractive, they are flame retardant.