FACES OF THE FIRE : Councilman Gentry Vows He and City Will Rebuild : Destruction: Three-time Laguna Beach mayor spent agonizing day barred from beloved town. His home and rental property both are lost.

Robert F. Gentry, the three-term mayor of Laguna Beach, spent the day after his beloved city’s worst-ever tragedy barred from the community, unable to communicate with residents or even visit his destroyed property.

Holed up at the Dana Point Resort on Thursday with dozens of other Laguna Beach residents, Gentry anxiously worked the phones and monitored the television, but was stopped by police when he tried to enter the city in the afternoon.

The entire town had been evacuated on Wednesday, and residents weren’t allowed back to some parts of the city until Thursday night.

He missed the City Council’s emergency meeting in the morning, and by dinner time had yet to revisit his Mystic Hills home or his Skyline Drive rental property, both of which were destroyed by the fire.

“I am going to rebuild,” vowed Gentry, a Laguna resident since 1970 who has sat on the council for 11 years and is leader of the city’s gay community.

“I am staying in Laguna Beach because I feel very safe there,” he said. “I’m very confident that the neighborhood I am in is strong and wonderful, and I have no intention of doing anything but replacing my home.”

Gentry first heard about the fire while in his office at UC Irvine. He called City Hall, then sped home, driving roads already engulfed in smoke.

The neighbors were in a frenzy. They made phone calls. Began to pack. Rescued a runaway dog, and hosed down the roofs.

“My gut told me that we would have this thing under control and we would not be in a dangerous situation,” he recalled. “I didn’t pack anything, I just kept the house moist.

“There was lots of activity, a great sense of excitement, a fearful excitement in the air,” he said. “You could feel the smoke and see the flames and feel the fear.”

At 4 p.m., the flames suddenly leaped across Laguna Canyon Road and it was Gentry’s time to go. He boxed up two cats, grabbed some pictures and stuffed his great-great-grandfather’s silver set into the trunk of his Honda.

“I went into a cold sweat, not being able to think clearly what to do,” he said. “As we left in our cars, the air was very thick. It was like almost in a fog and red cinders about the size of golf balls began raining down on the car. It was like we were almost beginning to be in the middle of a holocaust.”

But Gentry is confident his city will survive--and thrive.

“This city will respond to this disaster in a way that not many cities do respond to disaster,” he said. “We will recoup, rebuild and be stronger as a community because of this horrible devastation. I know the people who live in Laguna Beach.