A SIEGE OF FIRE : Residents Try to Make Sense of the Devastation : Destruction: Owners of homes return to sift through the rubble of the fire. They find that not much is left.

Barbara Merlo managed to give a tour of her house Friday, even though there was no house.

“There’s the piano,” she said, pointing to an unrecognizable chunk of rubble that protruded from the ashes.

“There’s the chandelier.

“There’s my brass bed.”

Merlo and her family had been in an airplane, returning from a vacation in New York, when the fire struck Wednesday night, leaving only three sagging kitchen walls and a chimney standing in their $325,000 home of 18 years.

They learned there was trouble when they landed in San Francisco to catch a connecting flight, but didn’t learn the awful truth of how bad it was until they arrived here.

“I don’t think I’m going to go away much anymore,” the 41-year-old Merlo said, tears welling in her eyes.

Then she bent down to pick up some debris and walked to what had once been her garage.

She used the debris to help cover the charred body of the family dog.

As her children, ages 5 and 13, poked around, looking for signs of the family cat, carloads of curiosity seekers cruised the area, gawking at the destruction.

Children who grew tired of searching for precious objects and pets played on a swing set that stood intact in the back yard of a house that had burned to the ground.

Similar scenes were played out in neighborhood after neighborhood on the outskirts of this city as residents tried to make sense out of the random devastation of the worst fire to hit Southern California in at least 30 years.

Lorraine Morrey, 55, stacked a pile of objects salvaged from her $850,000 home.

“It’s all junk,” she said of the 20-odd dishes, planters and coffee mugs that survived.

But what bothered Morrey most, she said, were the missing memories--baby pictures of her 30-year-old son.

Across the street, Joan Pearson had similar thoughts, a similar experience--and an idea.

She had salvaged a lamp, a metal stand from an old school desk and one plate.

“Otherwise,” she said, “everything is gone.”

But Pearson said that while staying with friends whose home was undamaged, other friends had called to ask if there was anything they could do.

Pearson had bravely told them no.

Then she had had second thoughts.

“I woke up in the middle of the night really upset,” she said. “I realized I have not one picture--not even baby pictures, of the kids.”

Then Pearson got the idea.

She began calling her friends back, asking them to check their own family albums to see if they contained photographs of Pearson’s husband and 18- and 20-year-old sons.

“It’s the only thing people could really do to help,” she said.

Burned out Santa Barbarans were taking all sorts of sentimental journeys Friday as they sifted through the remains of lifetimes of lost possessions.

Margaret Morris, 78, searched patiently for any undamaged artifacts from her trips around the world in the remains of her hilltop home, but was disappointed.

She and her husband had been watching and photographing the fire roar through the canyon below, until it finally reached their exclusive Park Highlands neighborhood.

Suddenly, it seemed, half the houses--including their own--were in ruins.

The Morrises barely escaped with their lives.

In their house, there had been turn-of-the-century oil paintings from Paris, a stamp collection, a jade collection, Oriental rugs and china inlaid with gold.

Now all were gone.

But Morris noted ruefully that her inexpensive microwave-proof dishes had survived.

“It just makes me sick,” she said, “when I think of what’s been broken or damaged.”

Barry Cook, 39, was also a collector.

He and his wife accumulated artifacts from the buildings of Louis Sullivan, one of the first architects to design high-rise buildings.

Cook put his foot on top of a twisted piece of metal Friday and explained, “This was once part of an ornate door to an elevator in a turn of the century Chicago apartment building.”

“The ironic thing is we were just talking about donating it to a museum.”

On Friday, Cook tacked no-trespassing signs on the few walls that remained of his house to discourage others from poking around.

But Cook, a building contractor, said he was most anxious about what his insurance company would do.

“Are they going to squeal and squirm?” he wondered.

He recalled that before much of his world was consumed in fire and smoke Wednesday night, he had managed to take only some clothes with him.

“The smoke was so thick I had to leave,” he said.

That was about 7 p.m.

By midnight, he said, he felt he had to know if his house had been consumed--or had miraculously survived.

He took back roads to avoid police and fire lines and learned the bad news.

THE FIRES’ TOLL

A rash of fires swept Southern California this week, including Glendale, Hemet and Chino Hills. Major fires continued to burn Friday in three areas: SANTA BARBARA COUNTY Damage: More than $230 million in property losses Acres burned: 4,900 Structures destroyed:

Single-family homes: 438, $214 million

Apartments: 80 units, $16 million

Businesses: 10, $3,037,000

Farms: 2, $200,000

Mobile homes: 1, $50,000

Public buildings: 4, $1.6 million

Injuries: 1 death, Andrea Gurka, 37; more than 40 injured, including a helicopter pilot who suffered a possible spinal compression when he crashed Cause: Arson

CORONA Bedford Canyon, Riverside County Damage: No estimate Acres burned: 4,500 Structures destroyed: 25 Injuries: Nine firefighters with extreme heat and smoke inhalation Cause: A controlled burn that jumped fire lines of California Department of Forestry LAKE HENSHAW San Diego County Damage: No estimate Acres burned: More than 4,000 Homes destroyed: None Injuries: None Cause: Arson