Blame and Fear Follow Flames : Inquiry: State fire marshal says lack of preparation impeded firefighting in Laguna Beach. Arson investigators seek a suspect as new winds approach.

Just as life regained a semblance of sanity in this fire-savaged town Monday, fire officials braced against the expected return of the Santa Ana winds and the unsettling thought that somewhere out there lurks an arsonist who may be enjoying it all.

Also Monday, a new round of finger-pointing for last week’s blaze began as the state’s highest fire official blamed the city’s lack of preparation for making fighting the fire nearly impossible.

As if that weren’t enough, plans to immediately reseed damaged terrain were scuttled Monday amid questions about whether the city’s charred hillsides are so badly damaged that seedlings might have trouble taking root--a development that worsened worries about rainy-season mudslides.

The city should have acted long ago to buttress its water supply and force residents to clear fire-fueling vegetation around their homes, said state Fire Marshal Ronny Coleman.

“I don’t know of a single soul who said the fire could have been stopped if they had 10 or 20 more fire trucks, but I did hear people say they could have made a difference if they hadn’t run out of water.

“You had fire loading underneath homes on the canyon because of the vegetation,” said Coleman, who was in Laguna Beach the last few days to monitor the fire-quelling effort. “It was like trying to put out a fire while sitting on top of a fireplace.”

Fearing a repeat performance by last week’s arsonist--or copycat arsonists--and perhaps another onslaught of the Santa Ana winds, Orange County Fire Chief Larry Holms said Monday his department would be on “red-flag alert” indefinitely.

As many as a dozen fire prevention specialists and investigators will patrol areas considered high-risk to watch for possible arsonists, Holms said. He has alerted the National Guard to have air tankers and two helicopters on immediate stand-by during the red-flag alert.

In addition, 10 county fire engines were to be dispatched to Laguna Beach, where two of the city’s own engine crews were being deployed on round-the-clock patrol in areas most damaged by last week’s fires: Mystic Hills, Laguna Canyon Road and Park Avenue.

Starting today, weather conditions are expected to bring warm, dry gusts of up to 45 m.p.h. That, combined with bone-dry timber and chaparral, is the same lethal recipe that produced last week’s wildfires. Such conditions, Holms said, bring out copycat arsonists who crave the kind of excitement such catastrophic fires bring.

“There is a whole list of people who are apt to start fires,” Holms said. “When the media begin to cover it like this, it just becomes a feeding frenzy for them.”

Laguna Beach Fire Battalion Chief Joe McClure said, “We’re just going to look and watch and wait and see.”

Also Monday, about 150 fire survivors began the process of rebuilding their homes by attending a Laguna Beach meeting on insurance rights. What they heard was discouraging. During the meeting, organized by state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), some survivors of the 1991 Oakland fire chronicled their ordeal in rebuilding.

“It’s been two years, and I’m still not back in my house,” said George Kehrer, an Oakland resident. “Your best ‘good hands’ are not a corporation; your goods hands are yours and your neighbors’.”

More than half of the 2,100 homes lost in the Northern California blaze have yet to be rebuilt because of insurance problems.

The Laguna Beach fire victims got one main message during the meeting: Learn as much as possible about homeowners policies and insurance rights.

“You won’t know if you are being treated unfairly if you don’t know what you’re entitled to,” said Ina DeLong, a member of United Policy Holders, a group of Oakland Hills homeowners who banded together to share information about their insurance companies. “Education is not only empowerment, it will save you money.”

In Los Angeles, arson investigators convened Monday to share notes on last week’s string of 14 Southland blazes, which at last count had burned 731 structures and 168,000 acres in six counties, causing an estimated $500 million in damage.

In Laguna Beach--by far the most heavily damaged area--366 homes and 16,682 acres were destroyed, with damage estimated at $270 million.

The only fire still burning is one near Ortega Highway in South County that has burned 21,384 acres and 36 homes. Firefighters there declared it 95% contained on Monday.

But in Laguna Beach, the state fire marshal’s comments are likely to provide more fuel for residents who have complained that the fire could have been corralled with better planning--charges that are likely to be aired repeatedly by residents at tonight’s first post-fire City Council meeting.

Coleman said the city made it especially tough on firefighters by not thinking ahead when it came to water supply and shrub-clearing.

Firefighters, he said, “couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. Obviously we had a severe problem with vegetation management. The fire was making quantum leaps over the canyon.”

Laguna Beach is not alone, he said. “It’s interesting that in fire after fire, areas have lost the power supply to the pumping station, and we continue to have the water system drained by people who are not threatened. We see water drained off by people sprinkling roofs miles away from the fire.”

If cities forced residents to clear brush and maintain fire breaks, maintained proper standby water sources and underground utility systems, they could better battle blazes, he said, because “when you’re out of water, you’re out of business.

“This is not about what the fire department is faced with at the time of the fire but all the planning that goes before it,” Coleman said.

Coleman said he would summarize all the problems related to the Southern California wildfires in a report to Gov. Pete Wilson, who has also been the target of criticism related to the fires.

Wilson’s state secretary of resources, Douglas P. Wheeler, took the opportunity Monday, while touring the Laguna Beach, Ortega and Pt. Mugu fire areas, to defend his boss, who has been accused of delaying the prompt dispatch of National Guard aircraft to help reign in the Laguna Beach fire when it first broke out.

“There is no basis for the complaint,” Wheeler said. “I think the true test of that is the remarkable fact that not a single life was lost.

“There is always second-guessing in an incident of this kind.”

While acknowledging there is red tape that needs to be cut--and likely will be as a result of the Laguna Beach fire--Wilson spokesman Dan Schur termed the charges “outrageous.

“Obviously, we’d like to see the process work more quickly,” Schur said. “No delay is excusable.”

Politics aside, Orange County arson investigators set their sights in earnest Monday on accomplishing what they say rarely happens in arson cases: making an arrest.

To that end, the team of county investigators--four full-time and two part-time--got some relief as members of the Laguna Beach Fire Department and the state Department of Forestry joined in.

In addition, the county is sharing information with special state and federal arson investigators who are examining the cause of other Southern California fires.

Holms, the county’s director of fire services, said his investigators are working with those from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and members of the governor’s arson task force.

The Anaheim Fire Department is pursuing its own investigation of last week’s fire in Anaheim and Villa Park. It is believed that someone driving a black Pontiac Fiero may be the culprit in that fire. Firefighters suspect the Laguna Beach and Anaheim fires may have been sparked by the same person.

A $50,000 reward provided by the governor’s office and extensive media coverage have prompted dozens of calls to investigators.

After culling through hundreds of tips, they have come up with six they are taking seriously.

That said, investigators caution against too much optimism: Arsonists are extremely tough to apprehend, because they are rarely seen. Statewide, suspected arsonists are caught in only about 10% of cases. Worse yet, a conviction occurs in only 1% of arson cases.

But the state fire marshal said, “We know that someone out there, somewhere, saw something.”

In the meantime, the effort to rebuild the Laguna Beach that was goes on.

By day’s end Monday, 250 residents had filed requests for disaster assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Administration, which had set up shop in the city’s recreation center.

FEMA, criticized in the past for its slow response to major disasters, has promised this time around to speed up its process and, for the first time on a wide-scale basis, is using hand-held computers designed to expedite claims from the field.

At the centers, workers from state and federal agencies are available to process requests for temporary housing assistance, disaster unemployment insurance and low-interest loans for rebuilding homes and businesses.

After being told it would be at least 20 days before officials can determine what aid he’s even eligible for, Joe Penhall, 40, who lost the roof of his El Moro trailer home in the blaze, said, “Let’s hope it doesn’t rain in the next three weeks.”

Of more immediate concern to some fire victims was something to wear.

Shopkeepers in downtown Laguna Beach said quite a few fire victims were out looking for replacement shoes and clothes on Monday, the return of the work week.

John Hansen, manager of Axlines Shoes, said many of his customers were in a daze. He said one long-time customer whose house burned down was in tears as she tried to buy a pair of shoes.

Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder said she would ask her colleagues to approve an indefinite extension of the countywide emergency declaration issued last Wednesday. If granted, the action would continue to restrict the county’s legal liability for accidents in the damaged areas and would allow work crews access to property for continued clean-up--which, all agree, will last for days, if not weeks, to come.

Times staff writers Greg Johnson and Eric Young, and correspondents Martin Miller and Frank Messina, contributed to this report.

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