13 Fires Ring Southland : 450 Homes Burn; Laguna, Altadena Hard Hit : Inferno: ‘The city is going up in flames,’ says mayor of Orange County coastal resort. Hundreds of millions of dollars in damage expected across Southern California.

Runaway brush fires carved swaths of destruction across Southern California on Wednesday, incinerating or damaging at least 450 homes and charring around 70,000 acres of brush and timberland in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego and Ventura counties.

Crowning the Southland in a virtual ring of fire that forced thousands to flee, the wind-whipped infernos struck hardest in the picturesque seaside resort town of Laguna Beach and an upscale foothill neighborhood of Altadena, north of Pasadena.

No deaths were reported, but at least 23 firefighters and eight residents were reported injured in 13 separate blazes.

Both the Laguna and Altadena fires were caused by people, with the Laguna fire blamed on an arsonist and the Altadena blaze attributed to a transient’s campfire. Arson was suspected in several of the other blazes.

Damage was expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars in one of the most sudden and devastating brush fire outbreaks in memory.

Undermanned and often overwhelmed by the enormity of the blazes, firefighters sometimes had to make difficult decisions: Which structures could be saved and which had to be abandoned to the flames.

In Laguna Beach, flames driven by hot, dry Santa Ana winds destroyed at least 300 homes--many of them multimillion-dollar estates--Wednesday afternoon, leapfrogging from house to house as desperate residents abandoned valuable belongings and headed for safer ground.

“The city is going up in flames,” said Laguna Mayor Lida Lenney as she packed up to leave her home. “God, what next?”

The city’s entire population of 24,000 was evacuated as California Highway Patrol officers and local police joined understaffed firefighting teams in a losing battle to slow the advancing fire. By nightfall, homes in Laguna Canyon were ablaze.

An hour later, the winds shifted and the fire turned back to the north, leading to the voluntary evacuation of the Irvine community of Turtle Rock and the nearby campus of UC Irvine.

At least 115 other homes were destroyed by an early morning fire that spread rapidly through 5,000 acres in Altadena. Only hours after that blaze broke out in rugged Eaton Canyon, authorities arrested a transient who was booked on suspicion of unlawful use of fire.

The man apparently was camping in the hills when his campfire touched off nearby brush, a Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman said.

At nightfall Wednesday, the winds picked up and the Altadena fire began to rage anew, striking east at the bedroom city of Sierra Madre. More than 500 residents were ordered to evacuate.

“We fully expect to lose some homes there,” a U.S. Forest Service official said Wednesday night.

Other major fires charred about 19,000 acres between Thousand Oaks and the Pacific Ocean; about 3,000 acres in Escondido, where homes were threatened and officials at the San Diego Wild Animal Park worked frantically to move endangered California condors and other species; and about 750 acres in the Orange County communities of Anaheim Hills and Orange, where 31 homes were damaged, two of them seriously.

In Washington, the U.S. Senate interrupted its business Wednesday night to hear brief reports on the fires from California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

“There is a potential catastrophe in the making in California,” Feinstein said, adding that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was prepared to add more tanker trucks and personnel to the firefighting effort.

Gov. Pete Wilson immediately declared a state of emergency and flew into Burbank Airport, meeting other elected officials at a fire command center in Pasadena.

Meteorologists said the winds--which gusted at up to 60 m.p.h in some areas on Wednesday--were expected to diminish today but increase again Friday; no rain is forecast for the next seven days.

The most serious fires continued to burn out of control late Wednesday as smoke darkened the skies and white ash dusted the Los Angeles Basin like mid-autumn snow. This was the battlefield:

Laguna Beach

The arson fire that seemed likely to cause the region’s most extensive damage broke out just before noon in the Irvine area, jumped a ridge and raced south toward the exclusive enclave of Emerald Bay.

Police cars cruised down the streets of Emerald Bay just after noon, bleating out evacuation orders. The residents soon stood waiting at the edge of Coast Highway, their cars filled with pictures and pets and other things that mattered most. They peered hopefully into the smoke for a glimpse of their homes.

“I have no idea if it is still there,” said Thomas McGonigal, 64, a 17-year Emerald Bay resident. “A $2 1/2-million home up in smoke.”

Within minutes, dozens of sumptuous houses had burned to the ground in Emerald Bay, where home values reach $10 million or more.

The less affluent suffered, too, as scores of mobile homes in the adjacent El Morro trailer park went up in flames.

Residents in downtown Laguna Beach crowded onto rooftops and lined Coast Highway to gaze at the fire’s inexorable advance.

Deer and rabbits fleeing the flames ran through the streets, and boulders jarred loose by burned vegetation rolled down the canyons.

Novelist T. Jefferson Parker shuttled between his hillside house and his Ford Bronco, ferrying the things he most wanted to save--photos, books, three dogs and five snakes--stalling his departure as long as he could.

“If it gets too bad,” Parker said, “I’ll get the hell out.”

Within minutes, the Police Department’s fire command post was swallowed by flames.

Surrounded by the fire, a group of policemen was able to escape when an air tanker dropped fire retardant that “hit the officers, their car, everything,” Laguna Beach Deputy Police Chief Jim Spreine said.

As the fire moved closer to the center of town, the official word came down: All of the city’s residents were to evacuate immediately. The charmingly narrow streets of the artists’ colony jammed with people, all of them trying to load up a last few possessions and leave at once. There are not many routes out of Laguna Beach, and the traffic was horrendous.

Overhead, helicopters dipped 150-gallon “Bambi buckets” into the Pacific, then headed back to drop the water on the homes burning in the canyons. But despite the best efforts of firefighters, volunteers, police officers and highway patrolmen who stepped forward to fill gaps in the ranks, the fire continued to move into town. “It’s out of control everywhere,” said Harriett Wieder, chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors. “We’ve totally extended our resources, our firefighting equipment, everything. Our communications equipment is on overload. This is a major national disaster.”

In the north end of Laguna Beach, smoke alarms buzzed eerily through abandoned homes, their sensors triggered by the smoke blowing ahead of the flames.

Resident Ann Driesenga was more angry than frightened.

“I don’t know who did this,” she said. “But whoever it is, I hope they catch him and give him the death penalty.”

Altadena

The fire that broke out at dawn Wednesday caught many residents still asleep as it raced through expensive neighborhoods, pushed by 50 m.p.h. gusts.

The blaze had burned across more than 1,000 acres by 10 a.m., scaling canyon walls and scattering embers that drifted for hundreds of yards.

Destroying homes almost as fast as anxious residents could flee, the Altadena fire spread to 4,000 acres by noon as about 1,000 firefighters struggled to contain it. By that time, water pressure to many parts of the area had petered out, leaving many frustrated residents unable to douse their homes and firefighters unable to refill their pumper units.

“We didn’t have the water to fight the fire,” County Fire Department Battalion Chief Dave Horn said.

Officials attributed the problem to a five-hour power outage that occurred when fire burned up power poles and electrical lines. The outage shut down the electric pumps feeding the area’s water supply. Firefighters were forced to fill their trucks from swimming pools.

Asked if the lack of water resulted in a loss of homes, Horn said, “I couldn’t say that. Someone might say it was a contributing factor.”

It was not until about 2 p.m., some residents said, that water again began to flow normally.

On Meguiar Drive, at least five homes were destroyed and others were badly damaged. Retired maintenance worker Earl Johnson, 65, was one of those who watched his home go up in flames.

“I built this myself, all by myself--and now it’s gone,” the soot-covered Johnson said as flames danced in the rubble of the three-bedroom structure, which is surrounded by tranquil Japanese gardens.

Sandy Bohlen, a longtime resident of the street, fled her house almost empty-handed shortly before the fire raged up close enough to damage the roof.

“You feel numb,” she said afterward, recalling the horror of her evacuation. “I thought, ‘What do I grab?’ But I didn’t know what to do. The fire was out of control.”

Sheriff’s deputies said they arrested a man for allegedly taking a strongbox from a woman’s van as she carried belongings from her home in the path of the blaze. Javier Robles, 31, was booked on suspicion of receiving stolen property and petty theft and held on $10,000 bail.

Pasadena resident Susan Seager, 37, drove to Altadena at 8 a.m., hoping to catch a glimpse of distant flames on the mountain ridge. Instead, she and her husband and their two children became engulfed in heavy smoke. They watched in horror as a palm tree half a block from them burst into flame.

“(This) palm tree was like a big red torch,” she said.

She said a strange scene unfolded as a nearby convalescent hospital began to disgorge its elderly residents, who were rolled on beds and in wheelchairs, clustering in the smoke-darkened parking lot.

To Seager it appeared “there was no one there to take them away. It was chaos. . . . It was a very frightening scene.”

Seager remembered seeing the residents of nearby homes packing cars and turning on sprinklers. Firefighters were scattered throughout the area, but there were no helicopters and no apparent front to battle the encroaching blaze, according to Seager.

“I knew that something bad was going to happen,” she said. “I just knew . . . that it was going to go crazy. My husband said, ‘We’d better get out of here.’ ”

At least 50 elderly patients were evacuated from the Marlinda Convalescent Home and Park Marino Convalescent Hospital, which sit side by side on Washington Boulevard.

At first, many patients were wheeled down the street in their beds and placed in an empty storefront. Later, they were taken to nearby St. Luke’s Medical Center, then transported--along with other patients--to Huntington Memorial and Arcadia Methodist hospitals.

St. Luke’s was shut down, except for a skeleton crew doing cleanup and preparing for injured firefighters.

Many residents who live above the Eaton Canyon Golf Course were angry because firetrucks did not show up until about 9:30 a.m., hours after residents were ordered to evacuate.

Eddy Looi watched helplessly while his neighbor’s home, two houses away, went up in flames, apparently touched off by airborne embers.

“Where is the fire engine? It’s been burning for two hours!” said the irate Looi, who lives on Villa Highlands Drive. “Why are we just standing here? Why not let the residents fight the fire with hoses and buckets?”

Firefighters finally arrived about 10:40 a.m. Their efforts in some areas were hampered by the low water pressure, authorities said.

A few residents complained bitterly to police that they should at least be allowed to try to douse the flames before evacuating.

Barclay Kamb, a geology and geophysics professor at Caltech, was handcuffed by police and escorted onto the street after he refused to leave his home at 3500 Fairpoint St., said his wife, Linda.

Her husband had wanted to remove palm fronds from his property because they catch fire easily, she said.

Evacuation centers were opened at nearby schools, where worried residents gathered to await word on the fates of their homes.

Early Wednesday evening, the fire began to spread into Sierra Madre.

At about 8 p.m. a hillside above Oak Crest Drive in Sierra Madre burst into flames. Residents in 23 homes on both sides of Oak Crest had been told to evacuate two hours earlier, but some had taken more than an hour to leave and some remained behind to protect their homes.

In front of one of the houses, resident Nancy Chapman, 24, said she refused to go when firemen ordered her family to leave.

“They’re very nice and very understanding, they know we just want to protect our homes,” she said.

At 10 p.m. in Sierra Madre’s Little Santa Anita Canyon, John Walker, a resident of the community for only three months, had six cars piled with chairs, books, pots, paintings and other household items, and was set to evacuate at a moment’s notice.

“I’m just tired” of waiting for the flames to come over a ridge and into the canyon, he said.

An hour later, in front of a three-bedroom home against the San Gabriel mountains in another part of the community, homeowner John McGrain watched nervously as the flames pushed east above his home.

“If the wind changes, this house is history in a hurry,” he said.

Atop 5,712-foot Mt. Wilson, which overlooks Altadena, nervous scientists were keeping a close eye on the fire, one ridge to the south. The summit is the site of an observatory crammed with costly scientific equipment, as well as the transmitters for every major Los Angeles television station and most of the city’s FM radio stations and paging services.

If the fire crests nearby Mt. Harvard, scientists will begin work at Mt. Wilson’s two 100-foot solar towers, packing away irreplaceable mirrors and lenses and driving them to safety, said UCLA astronomer Larry Webster.

Ventura County

A day-old arson fire swept across 21,000 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains back country to the Pacific Ocean.

The blaze continued to move steadily through dense brush south of Thousand Oaks, spreading east to the Los Angeles County line and west down the face of Point Mugu.

“All we can do is juggle resources and hope we’re at the right place at the right time,” Ventura County Fire Chief George Lund said. “We can’t really prepare, we just have to react.”

Three miles north of Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, about 50 firefighters late Wednesday night battled heavy flames that had damaged or destroyed more than a dozen homes in Yerba Buena Canyon and nearby Serrano Valley.

“They’re near the breaking point,” Paramedic Sam Villavicencio said. “Everybody’s exhausted. Just when you have it under control in one area, the wind whips up and you’re right back at it again.”

Firefighters were struggling valiantly to prevent the fire from overtaking about a dozen homes at the mouth of Yerba Buena Canyon. At 8:30 p.m., sheriff’s deputies urged people to leave the area. Several dozen gathered at Neptune’s Net restaurant, some of them nervously awaiting word from other family members who had stayed behind to ward off the fire at their homes.

Two Ventura County firefighters suffered minor injuries battling a section of the Thousand Oaks blaze that destroyed four houses at Deer Creek.

As the fire spread, officials evacuated the children’s unit at Camarillo State Hospital, and officials scrambled to evacuate more than 100 exotic animals, including monkeys, birds and three elephants, from the Animal Actors ranch near Yerba Buena Road.

In the coastal mountains, flames destroyed the Duquette Ranch and its eclectic collection of art and architectural treasures, despite a valiant struggle by firefighters and volunteers.

“There’s not enough equipment in here,” Ventura County Firefighter Vince Disanto said. “We’re not going to give up on it, though. We’re going to save as much as we can.”

As the flames bore down, ground crews pulled out and left the firefighting efforts to helicopters that dumped fire-retardant chemicals on buildings housing the art assembled by 79-year-old Tony Duquette, a Tony-Award-winning designer of Broadway and movie sets.

The artifacts included a boathouse with a Venetian gondola mounted on top, and gates from an 18th-Century Spanish church.

As the helicopters dropped load after load of powdery chemicals, strong winds dispersed much of it before it could hit the mark.

“The wind is too gnarly,” said Brian Merrick, 25, of Point Dume. “It’s kind of a bummer to see this all go down.”

To the north, a fast-moving fire that broke out near Santa Susana Pass Road in Simi Valley about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday injured four firefighters--one of them critically--and consumed more than 2,000 acres of chaparral-covered hillsides by nightfall, fire officials said.

The Los Angeles city firefighters were burned when flames overtook their engine as water pressure failed, the officials said.

The firefighters were all seriously injured and taken to the Sherman Oaks Hospital Burn Center, officials said.

Authorities were questioning a 27-year-old transient in connection with the blaze, but declined to comment further.

The fire forced the evacuation of about 400 residents and prompted officials to close the Metrolink railway line between the Simi Valley and the San Fernando Valley.

“The situation has really deteriorated out there,” Capt. Norman Plott of the Ventura County Fire Department said Wednesday afternoon. “The weather is bad, the temperatures have gone up and the winds have come up.”

A fire that started about 2 a.m. Wednesday near Steckel Park in Santa Paula spread west toward the city of Ventura during the day, burning across more than 4,000 acres of thickly wooded hillside by evening.

The Steckel fire was moving through thick brush in Wheeler Canyon and Aliso Canyon, prompting the closure of California 150 and forcing the evacuation of several dozen ranches in the area. About 60 ranch owners waited anxiously at a roadblock for county animal officers to bring out their horses and other livestock.

Fire officials in the city of Ventura said the fire could move into the outskirts of the city during the night, but they hoped to hold it at bay with the use of bulldozers and air drops of fire retardant chemicals.

In Ojai, a fire that broke out about 10 a.m. had seared 1,400 acres of thickly wooded hillside and threatened 65 homes and Wheeler Hot Springs.

Anaheim, Orange and San Diego County

In Anaheim and Orange, a brush fire blamed on an arsonist burned 750 acres and damaged 31 homes, two of them severely, fire officials said. About 350 firefighters battled to contain the blaze.

In the brush-covered hills of northeastern San Diego County near Escondido, a fire that erupted shortly after midnight burned across 7,000 acres, destroying six homes and five other buildings near 1,800-acre Wild Animal Park in the San Pasqual Valley. About 100 people evacuated their homes.

Twenty-six California condors and four Andean condors were evacuated from the “condorminium” to the park veterinary hospital two miles away, but none of the endangered birds were hurt. The park assembled trucks, vans and trailers to evacuate other animals if needed. Three cheetahs were crated for evacuation, and keepers raced to the resting area for the Okapi antelopes because the area was in the fire’s path before the wind shifted.

Park spokesman Tom Hanscom said the park’s animals seemed more unnerved by the flights of tankers and helicopters than by the continual rain of smoke and ash. A seven-year program of controlled burning around the park was credited with helping slow the fire’s march.

About 750 firefighters from the state Department of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service and local fire departments fought the blazes amid shifting winds. Air tankers and helicopters from nearby Ramona Airport were pressed into service.

The helicopters scooped water from an Animal Park watering hole normally frequented by European bison, water buffalo and several species of exotic sheep, deer and antelope. Keepers stood by to see that the animals were not injured.

More Fire Coverage

* FIREFIGHTERS BURNED -- Four firefighters were trapped by flames and badly burned, one critically, on the Ventura County line. A3

* FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT -- A couple who live in a house between Altadena and Sierra Madre describe their day in the midst of fire. A6

* AN UNSETTLING YEAR -- The firestorm feeds a nagging sense that, in many ways, we occupy combustible terrain. B1

* ADDITIONAL PICTURES, GRAPHICS A3, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2

Major Fires in California

Here are some of the worst fires, in terms of number of homes and other structures destroyed, in California history:

* OCTOBER, 1991: Almost 3,000 structures in Oakland and Berkeley were destroyed in a fire that killed 25 people.

* JUNE, 1990: More than 641 structures were destroyed in a 4,900-acre area in Santa Barbara County. Two people were killed.

* AUGUST, 1992: A wildfire burned more than 636 structures and 64,000 acres in Shasta County. One person died.

* SEPTEMBER, 1923: Flames destroyed 584 structures in a 130-acre area in Berkeley.

* NOVEMBER, 1961: More than 484 structures were destroyed in Bel-Air.

* SEPTEMBER, 1970: About 403 structures were ravaged and 10 people were killed as several blazes joined in a single wall of flame 20 miles long from Newhall to Malibu.

* SEPTEMBER, 1970: More than 382 structures and 185,000 acres burned in the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County. Five people died.

* NOVEMBER, 1980: A deadly brush fire swept through San Bernardino County, engulfing 325 structures in a 23,600-acre area. Four people died.

* SEPTEMBER, 1988: An arson-caused wildfire burned out of control in Nevada County, destroying 312 structures and more than 33,500 acres.

* JULY, 1977: In the Sycamore Canyon area of Santa Barbara County, 234 structures were lost.

* OCTOBER, 1978: A juggernaut of flame from eight fires destroyed 230 structures from Malibu to Agoura and Mandeville Canyon.

SOURCE: Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Recent Blazes in the Southland

The brush-carpeted canyons and hills of Southern California, left parched by dry weather and swept by Santa Ana winds, have historically created an extreme fire hazard. Here are some of the bigger brush fires in Southern California over the last five years:

* June 29, 1990: A swarm of fast-moving fires destroyed 641 homes and 4,900 acres in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties. Many more structures were damaged and more than 80 people were injured. Two people were killed. Property damage was estimated at more than $250 million.

* July 17, 1989: A brush fire sparked by exhaust from a tractor destroyed three homes, injured nine firefighters and charred more than 1,400 acres near Mt. San Jacinto in Riverside County. Damage was estimated at $175,000.

* July 4, 1989: A brush fire erupting out of Turnbull Canyon in Puente Hills destroyed 13 homes and damaged eight others. Damage was estimated at $4.3 million.

* July 1, 1989: A blaze that broke out near Ortega Highway in Riverside County burned 8,200 acres there and in Orange County and destroyed 11 structures near Lake Elsinore. Damage was estimated at $1.1 million; it cost $1.5 million to fight.

* June, 1989: Fires in the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County scorched 7,000 acres and destroyed six homes.

* December, 1988: A 3,000-acre fire in Granada Hills and the Porter Ranch area destroyed 15 homes and damaged 25 others. Damage was estimated at $4.3 million

* September, 1988: A 600-acre brush fire, set off when winds forced two high-voltage utility lines together, damaged 21 homes in the San Carlos section of San Diego.

* June 24, 1988: A foothill fire in Apple Valley in San Bernardino County injured 10 people, destroyed four homes and burned 215 acres. Damage was estimated at $145,000.

* June 5, 1988: A fast-moving brush fire, fed by high winds, destroyed six homes and charred 1,800 acres west of Desert Hot Springs in Riverside County.

SOURCE: Times news files.

Taking a Home Inventory

A detailed inventory of your home will be a valuable tool for new insurance purposes in case of fire, natural disasters or burglary. In a notebook:

1) List the major items in each room of your house, condominium or apartment, including the purchase date and price.

2) Attach to your list any available sales receipts.

3) Record the serial numbers of major appliances.

4) Also list the construction materials used in building your house, both inside and out. This can help with the assessment of a partially burned house, with is not unusual.

5) Engrave your driver’s license number on the back or bottom of items such as televisions, VCRs and stereos with an electric engraving device.

6) To back up your written inventory, take color photographs of your property. Or, if you have a video camera, make a videotape of each room and its contents. Photograph each wall of every room with closet or cabinet doors open.

7) Take close-up, detailed photos of jewelry, antiques and silverware, dishes and other valuables.

8) On the back of each picture, write the date, general location and contents shown. If you’re using a videocam, describe and value the items.

9) Store your written inventory, photographs and/or videotapes in a safe place away from home: a bank safe deposit box, a locked desk at work or at the home of a relative or friend.

10) Keep a copy of your inventory and negatives of the photographs at home so you can update your list from time to time.

Source: Insurance Information Institute