Most Laguna Business Unscathed : Merchants: It was a close call for many, but lumber yard is one of few with fire losses. Village is spared.

Despite flames that licked back doors, Laguna Canyon businesses emerged Thursday virtually unscathed by the fast-moving fire that just hours earlier had swept from the hills to the sea.

An exception was Laguna Beach Lumber, which lost a sawmill containing several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of sophisticated machinery. The main building and most of the exposed lumber were saved by the owners, who used the yard’s fire hose to fight the encroaching flames.

“We left and came back and the mill was on fire,” said Joe Jahraus, who owns the wood yard with his brother Jeff. Four previous brush fires have endangered the yard since the brothers opened the business in 1974, but all turned away at the last moment.

Not this time.

“It got into those trees,” Jahraus said, pointing to a charred clump next to where the sawmill had stood. “That was fireball stuff.”

The property was insured, he said, and the lumber yard could reopen as soon as today. Mark Sanderson, owner of a nearby photography studio, credited the Jahrauses for helping to save his business. The brothers, he said, not only watered down their own buildings but also fought back flames approaching other businesses.

“It came within five feet of my building,” Sanderson said.

The fire, which at one point Wednesday night seemed determined to engulf Laguna Beach’s famed village shopping district, changed its mind at the last minute. And local landmarks such as the bright-yellow Crystal Cove Shake Shack were spared.

Still, merchants and hoteliers feared that fresh memories of the conflagration could hurt the town’s reputation as a vacation mecca.

“The obvious damage to the business community is the loss of revenue we’re going to incur because we’re in no condition to welcome tourists,” said Jan Jurcisin, office manager of the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce. Restaurants and other service businesses that cater to local residents will suffer, too, as homeowners pinch pennies to save for rebuilding, he said.

Most businesses in the village were closed Thursday. The few that were open said they were giving away more than they were selling.

David Alfi, manager of the Coast Hardware store near the beach, spent the morning giving away his inventory of paper breathing masks, brooms and barbecue charcoal that firefighters used for cookouts.

The same giving spirit prevailed at the historic Hotel Laguna, where General Manager Claus Hjortkjaer said that about half of his 65 rooms had been offered free the previous night to fire victims. He also set up a hospitality suite with coffee and food for the survivors.

“This is the least we can do,” he said.

The harried Hjortkjaer said he had only six employees on the job instead of the usual 35 because so few had been allowed past police roadblocks. Hjortkjaer himself said he “snuck through” by taking side streets on foot, then hiked several miles to reach his business. The hotel will be back in full operation today, he said.

Several conferences set for Thursday at the hotel were canceled, however, in part because the conferees could not get into town.

The Inn at Laguna Beach, a neighbor of the Hotel Laguna on South Coast Highway, reported that its guests were coping well with the aftermath of the fire. The hotel was able to operate as usual because most of its staff live close by and were able to reach work, said Assistant Manager John Hewin.

He was upbeat despite the disaster.

“We didn’t lose the village, which is the bottom line,” he said.