Laguna Beach’s Uniqueness Contributed to Its Disaster : Design: Isolation and architecture that distinguish city left it a tinderbox. Governor chides some homeowners.

In the end, Laguna Beach may have been trapped by its own geography and a stubborn insistence that its architecture set it apart from the rest of Orange County.

Hemmed in by the Laguna Greenbelt and the sea, Laguna proudly displays its distinct identity in a county where many cities seem physically similar. Homes are perched awkwardly on stilts in the foothills, many affording spectacular views of the Pacific. The whole town has an isolated feel of a village unto itself.

Now that exclusivity has come at a price.

“There’s not real good fire access here and there’s lots of brush and sage,” said John Gustafson, the city’s chief building official. “But people like it. That’s why they moved in here. The nature look appeals to them. They like the area and they took a chance.”

Gov. Pete Wilson took homeowners to task Thursday after touring Laguna Beach, chiding them for keeping their surroundings so heavily landscaped. He also said the streets were too narrow, preventing emergency vehicles from getting through.

“There are other ways to beautify homes,” the governor said. “This has got to be prevented because it’s just asking too much of these firefighters.”

Wilson said he is ordering a map drawn up of California’s worst fire areas--including the Laguna Beach disaster--to use as a blueprint for a revised state building code.

The new requirements may include wider roads for emergency vehicles, a 35-foot perimeter around homes that must be free of combustible landscaping and a ban on wood shingle roofs, Wilson said.

One Laguna Beach architect, who has lived in the city for 17 years and has designed 60 homes here--all of them still standing after the fires--said the city clings to a “village character” that requires a woodsy, outdoors look at the risk of creating a fire hazard.

“A lot of people like that Old Laguna character,” said Mark Singer, 45, who spent several years on the city’s Design Review Board. “They like the cottage look. But some of those cottages are tinderboxes.”

Singer said he avoids using wood on the exterior of homes, employing concrete siding, stucco and gravel roofs exclusively.

“Some people, because of their personal likes and dislikes, select materials that are not necessarily the best choices,” he said. “And some people now have paid the price.”

But Gustafson defended the city’s building code Thursday, saying Laguna Beach’s construction regulations meet or exceed state fire safety standards.

Laguna Beach established, for example, an inland fire-hazard zone in 1980 that prohibits wood-shingle roofs or siding that is not treated with fire-resistant material in new or remodeled homes.

In addition, the city encourages, but does not require, the planting of fire-retardant native vegetation around homes.

“Short of putting fire breaks all over the place and building every home with non-combustible material, I’m not sure what else we could have done,” Gustafson said.

Architects say it is difficult to balance the desires of a city or individual homeowner with the overall need for safety.

“We dealt with the city of Oakland (after the 1991 wildfire there that destroyed 3,000 homes) and some improvements have been made,” said Sally Phillips, the executive director of the East Bay chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “The bottom line is: People make a choice of where they want to live. If you live in the Midwest, you might be in a flood plain.”

Harry Jacobs, an Oakland architect who specializes in home building and lives near the neighborhood where the homes were burned, said wood shingle and shake roofs are simply not safe in firestorm areas.

In Oakland, Jacobs said, wood shingles are now outlawed, and wood siding is permissible only if it is laid over fire-resistant material. For several years before the Oakland fire, retardant materials were required under all wood roofing.

“Now, it would be prudent to advise against shingle or shake roofs and to take the precautions that now are being taken in Oakland,” he said. “There’s consensus in areas that have experienced these kinds of fires: Folks are convinced that wood on a roof isn’t a good idea.”

Laguna City Councilman Wayne L. Peterson said the city understands its natural hazards and is trying to cope with them.

“We’ve been perhaps too restrictive in some areas and not restrictive enough in others,” he said. “Yes, we’ve got a lot of hillside homes that are too near some narrow roads, but we’re not allowing that now. I’m sure there will be a lot of analysis of this and everyone will have their say on what to do next.”

Bureaucratic delays that postponed brush clearing in Laguna Canyon may also have hindered efforts to fight the fire.

Orange County Fire Capt. Dan Young said Thursday that his department proposed a controlled burn in the Emerald Bay area three to four years ago, in an effort to reduce the amount of combustible material there. Controlled burns are a common way of reducing the threat of fire.

Young said the burn was never allowed by local, state and federal agencies because of concerns about air quality, wildlife habitat, the weather and other factors.

“It could have made a difference in this fire,” Young said. “It could have stopped it.”

Controlled burns were scheduled for each January of 1989, 1990 and 1992, but complex local, state and federal regulations could not be met, said County Fire spokeswoman Emmy Day. January is the only month that controlled burns are allowed in Southern California.

These requirements involve temperature, humidity and wind speed. At no time during any of those months were all three requirements met, which would have permitted the Emerald Bay burn.

But Peterson said it mattered little whether the brush had been cleared or not.

“This fire was coming down a hill, jumped the highway and then went racing 300, 400, 500 yards back up the hill,” he said. “No amount of controlled burn is going to stop that.”

Ironically, the state approved another request only 16 days ago, according to Day. The burn was scheduled for January.

The city’s continued opposition to a proposed 3-million-gallon reservoir in an environmentally sensitive area also became part of the debate Thursday. Firefighters began running out of water about four hours into their efforts to quell the blaze Wednesday.

The reservoir had been proposed for an area near Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park by the city’s water district in 1990. Earlier this month, the city manager recommended a 1-million-gallon reservoir.

“Well, we ran out of water,” said Joe Sovella, the water district’s general manager. “It sure would have helped to have that reservoir. The more storage we have, the better off we are.”

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Times staff writers Dan Weikel, Dave Lesher, Mark I. Pinsky and Jodi Wilgoren and correspondent Leslie Earnest contributed to this report.