Suspicious Fires Hit Cars, Garages in Laguna Beach

Laguna Beach and Orange County firefighters are investigating a series of three fires that destroyed two garages and seven cars and burned one-quarter of an acre of grassland early Wednesday morning.

Fire officials believe the fires are related and will compare evidence from the blazes with a series of six fires that occurred in the city between August and September.

Laguna Beach Fire Battalion Cmdr. Herb Jewell said the Fire Department has “no information and no eyewitnesses” for either series of fires, but he said certain characteristics of all the fires are “very similar.”

Property damage for the three fires is estimated at between $125,000 and $175,000.

Two Cars Burn

The first fire, at 2:32 a.m., destroyed a two-car garage at 217-223 Nyes Place and the two cars inside it. The second fire, at 3:05 a.m., destroyed a six-car garage at 2859 Wards Terrace and five cars inside it, including a Mercedes Benz roadster and a Mercedes Benz station wagon. A neighboring garage also had some damage.

The third fire blackened roughly a quarter of an acre area near 479 East Nyes Place.

Jewell said each of the fires were about a quarter of a mile apart, beginning above Coast Highway and ending below it. Causes of the fires are listed as suspicious. No residents were injured. One police officer was treated for smoke inhalation.

Last summer, six fires that fire officials believe may have been caused by the same person or persons included five brush fires and one garage fire. Jewell declined to specify the similarities in the fires.

Investigators are asking citizens for any information they may have about the blazes.

“These recent fires, although small, were set in congested areas,” Jewell said. “At one of them there was a residence with people sleeping in it not more than six feet from the burning parking structure. What looks like a nuisance-type fire can have significantly different end results.”