Local News in Brief : Santa Ana : Fire in Microwave Oven Damages 6 Apartments

A fire that started Wednesday in a microwave oven gutted one apartment and damaged five others in a two-story complex, fire officials said.

Flames had burned near the apartment complex’s wood shake roof when firefighters arrived shortly at the complex in the 1200 block of Beechwood Street shortly before 4 p.m., fire officials said. But the blaze was contained within 20 minutes by 28 firefighters, Santa Ana Fire Department Battalion Chief Tim Graber said.

Julio Lainez, 10, said he was watching television with his 6-year-old brother in the family’s apartment when he smelled smoke from the microwave oven, where he was heating chicken for dinner.

“My first thought was to get a towel and stop the fire. . . . Then the towel got burnt up” as he tried to smother the flames spreading below the oven, he said. When he dropped the burning cloth, the carpeting caught on fire and spread to the living room, prompting both boys to flee the second-story unit.

Santa Ana Fire Department spokeswoman Sharon Frank said heat from the fire was so intense that the balcony railing outside the apartment had bent outwards.

The fire caused an estimated $100,000 in structural damage to the Lainez family’s apartment, as well as smoke and water damage to two adjacent apartments and three on the ground floor below, Frank said.

The boys’ father, Cesar Lainez, 43, said the family would stay temporarily in another apartment in the complex.