Anaheim Fire Spews Embers on Roofs of Homes

Fire destroyed an Anaheim apartment complex under construction Saturday morning, sending embers floating through a residential area and touching off at least 10 roof fires, authorities said.

There were no serious injuries in the fires, which took firefighters more than two hours to bring under control. The roof fires in neighboring houses caused only minor damage, officials said.

“It’s a miracle the whole thing didn’t get out of control,” said Ken Grant, an Orange County Red Cross official who was at the scene. “Had the wind shifted just a little bit we could have had big problems. Fortunately there were enough firemen around to knock down the fires. We were lucky, just damn fantastically lucky.”

Grant said homeowners of the neighboring houses were evacuated during the fire, but were later allowed to return to their homes.

A spokeswoman for the Orange County Fire Department said the blaze, which began at 1:50 a.m. in a shed used by transients at 9942 W. Broadway, caused an estimated $5,000 in damage to the neighboring houses, in addition to the unknown cost of replacing the three-story, wood-frame apartment complex. A small vacant house next to the complex had burned earlier in the week, she said.

Sixty-five firefighters fought the blaze, and flames shot up as high as 100 feet, the spokeswoman said.

Several nearby businesses suffered minor damage, including a hardware store that was not occupied at the time. The homes where the roofs caught fire were just southwest of the intersection of Brookhurst Street and West Broadway.

Grant said the fire was reminiscent of one more than five years ago in Anaheim that burned almost an entire city block and left about 600 people homeless.

“In that one some palm trees were burning and the wind blew the embers around the area,” he recalled. “That one got out of control. We are lucky this one didn’t. . . .”

Paul and Ardell Harrison, two longtime residents of the area, own a home just a few blocks from the fire, but it was not damaged.

“There were a lot of cinders on the driveway and on the roof but nothing really happened,” Paul Harrison said.