Seal Beach Fire Guts Brokerage and Restaurant
A pre-dawn fire gutted a Seal Beach restaurant and stock brokerage office Saturday, causing an estimated $1.3 million in damage, authorities said.
The blaze in the 400 block of Pacific Coast Highway apparently started in a storage room at the Koi Restaurant, spread to the kitchen and then upstairs to the offices of Shearson Lehman Hutton, Orange County Fire Department spokesman Kathleen Cha said.
A Seal Beach police patrol reported the fire at 4:54 a.m., and the two-story wood structure was fully engulfed in flames when the first fire units arrived, Cha said.
About $800,000 in Damage
The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
About 50 firefighters battled the blaze for more than an hour. The restaurant’s kitchen was destroyed and there was severe smoke and water damage to its dining and lobby area. Damage was listed at about $800,000.
In the brokerage office, Cha said computer and accounting equipment, valued at about $500,000, was destroyed.
Two adjacent businesses--the Rang Thong Restaurant and a Century 21 real estate office--sustained some smoke and water damage, Cha said.
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