POOLING RESOURCES: Ken Perry of Utah Pacific...

POOLING RESOURCES: Ken Perry of Utah Pacific Construction Co. and his 2,000-gallon water truck came to Laguna Beach from Riverside County Wednesday to help firefighters. But when he got there, he discovered that the water hydrants were already tapped out. Perry’s solution: He pumped water from people’s back-yard swimming pools. . . . Most swimming pools, Perry says, can supply more than two hours of water to fight fires: “A lot of these rich people’s swimming pools were saving their houses.”

THEY’VE BEEN THERE: Bill Calliham knew Crest de Ville where he lived in Orange was in fire danger Wednesday. And, like many others facing similar disaster in the county, he found a way to determine if his home was safe: He called to see if his own answering machine was working. Fortunately, it was. . . . Calliham and his wife, Glee, know about fire. Their “dream home” in the same neighborhood was destroyed in the 1982 Gypsum Canyon fire. Calliham says his heart goes out to those less fortunate Wednesday: “I feel bad for them, so bad for them. All you can do is take a deep breath and start all over. It’s hard.”

A REAL NIGHTMARE: Halloween season is when youngsters drag out their Freddy Krueger masks. But the real Freddy of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies, Robert Englund, didn’t have the holiday on his mind Wednesday night. He and wife, Nancy, remained in their Laguna Beach home instead of evacuating. (B3) Their concern mounted when a change in the wind’s direction briefly engulfed in dense smoke their neighborhood at the base of Bluebird Canyon. But they were spared from fire. . . . Says Englund, who spent the night watching from his rooftop: “It looked like ‘Apocalypse Now’ with the helicopters and the smoke and the sun setting.”

COT TOWN: Fire didn’t reach either of the county’s two boys’ camps--Los Pinos near Ortega Highway or Joplin in Trabuco Canyon--Wednesday night. But it crept close enough that both had to be evacuated. And that meant another 179 boys sent to an already overcrowded Juvenile Hall in Orange. . . . “We put them up on cots and managed to get their teachers to them for a normal class day today,” said spokeswoman Stephanie Lewis on Thursday. “We can do OK for now. But the sooner we can send them back (to camp), the better.”

COMING BACK: Had it not been for the fire, you could have heard rap music’s Cypress Hill, House of Pain and Funkdoobiest at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in Irvine on Thursday night. It had to be canceled. . . . But hang on to your tickets if you have them: It’s been rescheduled for Sunday. Same time: 8 p.m.