3 Firms Destroyed by Fire; Smoke Visible for 20 Miles

Fire raced through three Laguna Niguel businesses Thursday morning, causing an estimated $1.8 million in damage and sending dense clouds of smoke across Interstate 5, slowing traffic for hours.

More than 60 firefighters battled the blaze for an hour as sheets of flame shot through the rooftop in the 27600 block of Camino Capistrano.

No serious injuries were reported. But Laguna Auto Body, Saddleback Wholesale Electric and Triple L Electric all were destroyed.

The smoke--seen 20 miles away in downtown Santa Ana--obscured visibility on the nearby freeway, where California Highway Patrol officers were called out for traffic control as drivers slowed. The freeway remained congested into early afternoon.

Orange County Fire Chief Larry Holms said that while firefighters couldn’t save the building, they did prevent the fire from spreading to other businesses in the light-industrial complex.

“These guys did an impressive job,” Holms said at the scene.

Two firemen were treated at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center for minor injuries. Ron Sanchez was treated for a back injury and released, and Bob Coats was treated for smoke inhalation after standing atop an aerial ladder directing a stream of water onto the blaze.

The fire began at 10:30 a.m. when an acetylene cylinder on a torch ignited and shot flames across a room, the county Fire Department said. But Don Jacobson, manager of the body shop, said that a welder had attached a rear quarter-panel to a car on a raised platform and that 20 minutes later a spark from that welding process ignited the interior of the car.

The seven workers looked up to see the car engulfed in flames, Jacobson said. He and another worker grabbed two of the seven fire extinguishers from a nearby wall as other employees raced to salvage as many of the 20 automobiles in the business as they could.

Jacobson said they had driven 13 cars outside when a canister of oxygen exploded.

“I was pushed backwards” by the explosion, said Jacobson, who then ordered everyone out of the building.

About that time, workers from nearby businesses came running with more fire extinguishers, but Jacobson said they were pushed back by the heat of the rapidly growing inferno.

The seven cars left in the body shop caught fire and exploded in turn, as did canisters of oxygen and acetylene, Jacobson said. Fire also engulfed a 55-gallon drum of paint thinner, as well as some other chemicals used in auto body work.

The Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Unit went to the scene in case a toxic cloud was released. But Fire Capt. Patrick MacIntosh said the smoke was not dangerously toxic.

In the front half of the burning building, the 20 workers at Saddleback Wholesale Electric and the two in Triple L withdrew after black smoke began streaming into their businesses. They had little time to retrieve business records and other valuables before flames broke through the walls and enveloped the rooms.

“Just thank God no one got hurt,” said Larry Lyster, owner of Triple L Electric, an electrical contracting firm.

Rummaging through the back of a pickup where he had stowed a few belongings, Lyster smiled when he stumbled across a check from a contractor, which he thought had been lost in the fire.

“We’ll need this for operational expenses,” he said.

Next door at Saddleback Wholesale Electric, which supplies electrical equipment for construction and industrial use, the workers were not so lucky. They said they barely had time to get out themselves, much less with any inventory.

“We started trying to take out stock when the flames came through the wall and caught everything on fire,” said Tony Castellano, a salesman for the company. “We knew it was over then.”

Robert P. George, who owns Saddleback Wholesale Electric and the 20,000-square-foot building, said all the business had insurance coverage.