Quiet Fourth of July Was Almost Holiday for Firefighters

Fire officials in Orange County, who had braced for yet another busy Fourth of July, were surprised Monday after “one of the quietest” holidays in decades, they said.

“Normally we dread this day every year,” Anaheim Fire Department Battalion Chief Rudy Weyland said. “But this is probably the slowest Fourth of July in my 23 years as a firefighter. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Firefighters were kept busy with a rash of fires across the county over the weekend. But fireworks were suspected of causing only a few of them, fire officials said Monday. No injuries were reported in the blazes.

Weyland and other fire officials attributed the safe weekend, in part, to fireworks bans imposed by 19 of Orange County’s 27 cities to limit fire damage and prevent injuries from illegal and “safe and sane” fireworks.

Last year, fireworks were blamed for 10 injuries and about $382,000 in property damage in the county, authorities have said.

Small Grass Fire

In Mission Viejo, fireworks were suspected of sparking a one-acre grass fire about 10 p.m. Sunday at Hidden Hills and Golden Lantern streets, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Department said Monday.

A second, smaller fire near Geronimo and Olympiad Road in Mission Viejo reported about 4:20 p.m. Monday also may have been started by fireworks, the spokesman said. The causes of both fires remain under investigation, he said.

Early Monday, Costa Mesa firefighters were kept busy extinguishing a blaze at an apartment building under construction and one at an apartment carport.

Late Sunday night, firefighters put out a roof fire in Newport Beach’s East Bluff area, and in Fullerton vandals were suspected of setting a fire that consumed the Amerige Park bleachers, which were scheduled for demolition, authorities said.

In Garden Grove, firefighters teamed with police in marked police cars and patrolled neighborhoods over the long weekend, answering complaints of loud fire crackers and other illegal fireworks.

“We only had a small back-yard grass fire (on Monday) when someone altered a legal firework and it caught the grass on fire,” Garden Grove Fire Department Battalion Chief Joseph Chandler said.

“So far, it’s been relatively quiet. But knock on wood--it’s not over yet,” Chandler said, several hours before midnight on July 4.

On Sunday, fire that swept through an office complex in Anaheim caused $100,000 in damage, Anaheim fire officials said.

Firefighters controlled the blaze at the Normandy Financial Corp. in the 1300 block of South Euclid Street within 15 minutes, Chief Weyland said. The fire broke out about 7:20 p.m.

The cause is under investigation, Weyland said, dismissing as “premature” an earlier report that the fire was set by an arsonist.

$100,000 in Damage

The fire caused about $50,000 in damage to the structure and another $50,000 in damage to contents, he said.

In Costa Mesa, the first blaze broke out a little after midnight Sunday at an apartment building under construction in the 100 block of Santa Isabel Avenue.

“Luckily, the building had some drywall up, and that helped contain the fire,” Costa Mesa Fire Department Battalion Chief Ken Soltis said.

Damage was estimated at $13,000 to the structure and contents, he said. The cause was under investigation.

In the second fire, which erupted a short time later, flames engulfed a carport in the 100 block of Flower Street. Soltis said that damage was estimated at about $25,000 and that the cause of that fire also was under investigation.