FACES OF THE FIRE : Losing a Piece of Paradise : Hidden Valley: Six of the 13 cottages in the aptly named ranch fail to elude the flames. Fire reduces the sequestered community to a charred, barren gash.

The 13 cottages lining the aptly named ranch in Hidden Valley have always been shielded from the community’s eyes, but the spirit of the colorful residents who have lived in the secluded cul-de-sac has always seemed close to Laguna Beach’s heart.

Built in 1932 as a village for visiting Olympic athletes, the bungalows were moved from their original downtown location to the steep V-shaped valley in the 1950s. In the 1960s, a commune for that era’s flower children sprung up in the quiet, sheltered spot, while in the 1970s it evolved into an artists’ colony, with the founders of the Sawdust Festival among its residents.

The modest but stylish one-bedroom cottages were a reflection of the surrounding community Wednesday night, when unforgiving fires charged down the slopes, past the caves that still bear American Indian drawings and the carefully tended herb garden, and gutted nearly half of the sequestered area.

“Oh God, no, oh, it’s so sad,” resident Sharron Norton said as she walked up the path Thursday morning into Hidden Valley and saw the blistered and buckled structures that once were her neighbors’ homes. Although her own cottage was spared, her hands and lip trembled as she surveyed the blaze’s toll on neighboring homes.

“When I left, I thought I would never see my home again. And when I came back, I thought I was prepared for the worst . . . but, this,” she said, staring at the geyser of flame shooting from a crumpled gas main near a home that had collapsed in upon itself, “this is unbelievable.”

The valley, which was populated by deer that make daily treks through its ridges and inclines, was just a charred, barren gash after the fires ripped through six of the homes, causing a parked car to explode and clearing away the trees that provided shade.

Fingers of fire winding down the slopes began to lick at the roofs of the cottages about 11 p.m. Wednesday, just as a friend helped resident Scott Thompson pile three years’ worth of furniture, pictures, silverware, videotapes and a bed into the rear of his 1962 Chevy pickup truck.

“My girlfriend’s dad made this workbench for her, and he’s passed away now and all, so she couldn’t imagine letting it go up,” Thompson said as he and Derek Ahia maneuvered the heavy wooden piece into the truck. Both eyed the encroaching flames, now about 15 feet above them and raging.

“We got to go!” Thompson, 30, exclaimed as a tree touching the roof ignited. Thompson turned the key, but the truck’s engine remained still. He jumped out, throwing up the hood to touch a screwdriver to the starter, completing an often-faulty circuit. A moment later the engine revved, and the truck lurched forward.

“That’s it, that place is history,” Thompson said, staring back as the cottages became engulfed in a black haze.

Thirty minutes later, teams of firefighters were in the valley, soaking down the homes and using foam to curb the fire. They would leave after 15 minutes, thinking they had saved all but two of the homes, but a reversal of wind and fortune brought the fire back down to ignite first the trees, and then Thompson’s carport at 12:10. Nearby, flames raced up a power pole, bringing lines down across the valley’s narrow roadway and sole entrance.

As smoke filled the valley, a disheartened Thompson and Ahia, hoping to find out the home’s fate before leaving, began to shake their heads. “I hope they know what they’re doing,” Thompson said.

Two more homes were soon engulfed in flames, and an explosion marked the buckling of a gas main while feeble fire alarms beeped in chorus. Firefighters noted the rapid popping sounds that usually indicate the fire has found and discharged stored live ammunition.

The firefighters scaling garden walls and watering roofs began to pull back as the wind continued to vex their efforts. “It’s going to come through here like a freight train when it hits those trees,” Orange County firefighter Don Hayden told his team.

When the fire threatened to circle behind the firefighters, pinning them and their truck in the stifling heat and deadly smoke, they quickly pulled out, hoping their watering would stave off the fire until it ran out of brush. “No time to be pretty, let’s go,” Hayden yelled.

The next morning, as mounds of smoldering rubble marked the site of six lost homes and countless destroyed possessions, the cottages’ owner, Frank Cinquegrana, walked through the valley he has loved since investing in its land in 1973.

He said he was not surprised to hear that tenants had already been by to check on what were their residences.

“The people that come here, no matter for how long, love the valley,” Cinquegrana, 70, said. “It’s a very special place. No one forgets it.”

His voice cracking, Cinquegrana said years of memories rushed to mind when he saw the ash and smoke that hung in the air.

“When you put your sweat, your time and you’re emotionally involved in property like this, this just makes you sick,” he said. “When you see the tenants here sobbing, it breaks your heart. Some of them have lost everything. There was so much here.”