Victims Recount Losses--and Count Their Blessings : Reaction: In chaotic Laguna, families are separated and residents watch homes burn. Many narrowly escape.

In the chaos of Orange County’s worst-ever fire disaster, narrow escapes and tales of tragedy emerged. Parents were separated from children, families lost their homes and Laguna Beach was changed forever.

Tom Ostensen and his son Justin arrived at the hill beneath La Vista Drive at the exact moment the Laguna Beach wildfire reached their home.

“We got back in time to see our house go up in flames,” he said. “That’s 30 homes up there. That’s just unbelievable.”

By nightfall, Ostensen’s family was scattered. He figured his wife, Kathryn, a counselor at Thurston Intermediate School, was with the students evacuated to Dana Hills High School, but he couldn’t be sure. A second son was at the Lutheran Church, wherever that was.

“I guess we’ll find it,” Ostensen said.

For a man who had just watched his 4,000-square-foot home be engulfed in flame, Ostensen was remarkably stoic.

“We’ll rebuild,” he said. “It would be awfully hard to root us out of this town.”

*

Jesse Aguayo, 28, of Laguna Beach, vice president of an electronics firm, was passing by Allview Terrace when he noticed Bart Brown hosing down the roof of his home. Aguayo immediately felt the need to help. The fire was coming. He ran around Brown’s house to the back deck and began watering it down.

At that moment, a large tree right below the house burst into flame, trapping Aguayo on the deck. Joe Philebar, who was painting Brown’s house, screamed to Aguayo: “It’s time to go! Get out!”

With his only exit through the house, Aguayo frantically tried to pry open a patio door, but it was locked. As the flames approached, he grabbed a pot and smashed it through a sliding glass door.

In his confusion, he couldn’t find a door, so he dove through a small window. He was later treated for cuts, on hands and arms.

*

Blaise Subbiondo, 56, had little time to make a harrowing escape from his home on Skyline Drive, which abuts Laguna Canyon.

“Once that fire shot up that canyon wall, it came up in a hurry,” he said. “There was no time to do much of anything.”

Subbiondo ran into his house and “I grabbed what I thought was most important; I literally had 15 minutes before the flames took over my house.”

As he shoved his computer into his car, a tree next to Subbiondo’s car caught fire and exploded.

“As I started driving down the hill, tree limbs on fire started crashing around me,” he said. “I really wondered whether I was going to make it.”

“I’ll just have to come back in the morning and see what is left,” he said.

*

Screenwriters Linda Rea, 37, and John Piccione, 35, were driving home to Laguna Canyon from Los Angeles when they heard about the fire.

They had minutes to choose among the possessions they would keep should the rest of their belongings be lost forever.

“We grabbed our computer, our bills and we made sure our screenplay was safe in our car,” Piccione said. “It was just terrible.”

By 3:30 p.m., they were out of the home. They assume it was destroyed.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Rea said. “Only wait until the authorities tell us what to do.”

Left behind was a huge collection of science fiction films on video.

“We weren’t able to take any of it with us,” Rea said. “Our science-fiction videos, our music--gone, gone, gone.”

At the Dana Hills High School evacuation center, they tried to figure out what to do next. Maybe they’d stay at the shelter. Maybe they’d just head back to Los Angeles.

*

Stephanie Folger, 31, lives in Mission Viejo and her mother lives in north Laguna Beach.

At 1 p.m., her mother called to say she was packing her car, ready to flee the wildfire that was bearing down on her home. Sitting in the Red Cross evacuation center at Dana Hills High on Wednesday night, Folger hadn’t a clue what had happened next. She was heaving great sobs, her face red and streaked with tears.

“I’m just sitting here waiting. My father is on a business trip in Palmdale,” she said. “He’s got to know about this by now.”

Folger appeared in shock. She was sitting near the entrance of the shelter, waiting to see her mother’s face. Her boyfriend was also wandering around the shelter, searching.

*

Matthias Hagl, 29, and Jennifer Hagl, 24, made a mad rush out of the canyon with their two children. They had lived in a Laguna Canyon apartment for a year and a half.

“We left 10 minutes before the canyon was evacuated,” Matthias Hagl said. “We saw the fire coming down the hill and thought it was too close to us.”

For an hour until her husband got home, Jennifer packed. Photos and clothes mostly.

“We were prepared for this, because we had a fire at our neighbor’s place downstairs last week,” Matthias Hagl said. “We’ve already thought of what we could take with us if we had a fire in our apartment.”

*

The Morenos’ minivan was packed.

Inside were David, 31, Debbee, 23, and their three children, ages 5, 2 and 4 months.

On top of the van were their beloved mountain bikes.

The Morenos have been living in the Laguna Canyon area in a house that David, an artist, also uses as a studio.

Although they were told to evacuate at 12:30 p.m., they stayed until 4 p.m.

David said he left behind pieces of his artwork worth several thousand dollars.

“I never thought it would happen to us,” Debbee said. “We’re blank. We’re just going to see what we’re going to do. It’s gnarly.”

*

At the height of the fire, Lynn and Basil Shardlow raced from door to door of the Mermaid Terrace, a senior citizens housing development in downtown Laguna Beach.

“There’s a fire!” they exclaimed. “We think you should leave!”

The fire was just on the other side of Laguna Canyon. It was time to hurry. Many of those inside had no idea there were flames half a mile away.

The Shardlows got their two cars and enlisted the help of a friend. They evacuated the building, shuttling the elderly to friends in neighboring towns.

“We just wanted them to feel safe,” said Basil Shardlow, a retired physician.

*

Joe Brummel, a free-lance photographer, lives in Laguna Canyon. Instead of heading back home to check on his property, he was out directing traffic on Park Avenue in front of Laguna Beach High School.

“My car, everything I own, is out there,” he said. “I haven’t been out there, but everyone has told me everything is gone.”

*

Mercedes, Jaguars and Porsches poured from the streets of Laguna Beach neighborhoods onto Coast Highway. A police officer, his motorcycle siren blaring, ordered drivers to evacuate.

Connie Roy had her 8-year-old granddaughter beside her in a car, determined to get out.

“I’ve got a pregnant daughter up the hill,” the frenzied woman said through her car window. “My husband has gone to get a van. We have some expensive art and crystal we have to get out of there. But right now, I’m just trying to evacuate my granddaughter.”

*

Seventeen-year-old Josh Schaffer lugged an antique grandfather clock down a hill--his effort a favor for a friend’s mother. “She told me to be careful as I was carrying it out the door,” he said. I just told her, ‘I’m going to get it out any way I can.’ ”

Nearby, J.W. Johnson dashed from his house in search of a missing cat. “God sure has a weird sense of humor, doesn’t he?” Johnson muttered. “This fire could destroy my entire life.”

*

David Lashbrook, 41, headed home from a construction site in Irvine and had trouble getting home to Laguna.

He couldn’t drive up Coast Highway, so he walked the six miles. When he got up to his house on Mystic Lane, nobody was home. Not his wife. Not his month-old son or 9-year-old daughter or 12-year-old daughter.

Lashbrook started to panic. A neighbor said his family had gone to a friend’s house. But she didn’t say which friend.

By nightfall, at the makeshift shelter at Dana Hills High, Lashbrook had found his father, but not the rest of his family.

Most likely, he doesn’t have a home anymore.

“Everything I’ve got is sitting in that house,” he said. “I’ve often wondered what it was like to start over. I may be getting that chance. But I’d rather be homeless than family-less.”

*

Frazzled officials at Laguna Art Museum, located on Coast Highway about a quarter of a mile north of Laguna Canyon Road, moved every artwork that would fit into a vault after closing the museum to the public early Wednesday afternoon.

Even if flames never reach the 75-year-old museum, smoke seeping inside the building could damage or destroy delicate artworks.

The “Kustom Kulture” exhibition in the galleries includes nearly 100 paintings, drawings, sculptures and other objects by Von Dutch, Ed Roth, Robert Williams and lesser-known “car culture” artists.

The museum also owns more than 3,000 works by 19th- and 20th-Century California artists, including works by Laguna Beach impressionist landscape painters, “American Scene” painters and leading contemporary artists.

“We’re trying to figure out if we’ve taken all the emergency precautions we can,” Bolton Colburn, curator of collections, said at around 4:15 p.m. He and other personnel had not been told to evacuate at that point.

“I’d be surprised if (the fires) got down here,” he said, “but it sure looks scary.”

Times staff writers Gary Jarlson, Jerry Hicks and Zan Dubin and Times correspondents Terry Spencer and Rose Apodaca contributed to this report.

Readers Reaching Out

The Times Orange County is offering its pages to readers who want to help fellow residents cope with losses from the devastating fires.

Businesses, individuals or organizations in a position to offer free help are invited to submit that information for publication in The Times at no charge. Simply call (714) 966-5600, Ext. 62222 and tell what free service or contribution you can provide. As an alternative, readers may call TimesLink at 808-8463 and press *8110 to leave a recorded message. Please provide your name, address and phone number. We will publish the list beginning with Friday’s paper.

The victims of the fires have many practical needs that cannot be met by relief agencies but can be by their neighbors here in Orange County.

AMONG THE GOODS AND SERVICES NEEDED

* Transportation, shelter and food

* Clean-up

* Child care

* Boarding of pets or horses

* Counseling

* Serving as drop-off points for contributions of goods

* Communications with relatives

* Providing fresh water and other drink

* Medical services

The Times Orange County hopes many readers will use this service to reach out to those in need.