Fires Gut 3 La Habra Apartments : Blazes: Arson is suspected in the outbreak, which caused an estimated $1.3 million in damage.

Hours after an early-morning fire gutted her apartment and those of two neighbors Wednesday, Tanya Tolmasoff tried to look beyond the crumbled walls, blackened furniture and melted television for items she could salvage.

About all she could find were some potted plants on her patio.

“I figured this place would be totaled,” said Tolmasoff, who lived in the Glencliff Street apartment with her two children. “When I saw the flames coming up, I knew it would be totaled.”

Tolmasoff and other residents were awakened just after 2 a.m. by neighbors shouting “Fire!” and by someone who drove around the complex parking lot honking a car horn.

The residents stumbled on three fires at different points around the 97-unit apartment complex. La Habra fire investigators say the fires appear to have been intentionally set, but said they do not know how or why.

While no residents were hurt, two firefighters were taken to a hospital with minor injuries.

The blazes caused an estimated $1.3 million in damage. Three apartment units were destroyed, one was heavily damaged and eight others suffered less severe damage, city building officials said. Fourteen vehicles parked in the carport also were gutted.

“It was my baby,” said one tearful resident as she came upon the remains of her car, the metal melted by 1,400-degree heat. “People teased me because I loved that car. But I didn’t care.”

Arson investigators on Wednesday morning used a police dog to sniff for signs of flammable liquids around the origin points of the fires.

Larry Powell, battalion chief for the La Habra Fire Department, said the blazes appear to be the work of an arsonist because they were set in separate places. Investigators believe some sort of accelerant was used to start the fires, Powell said.

Some residents reported hearing loud pops and an explosion about the time the fires started. Others said they heard tires screeching around the carport.

Resident Sharman Smith said that at least three cars parked in the carport have been broken into over the last two weeks. The burglars took various items, including the card keys that open gates surrounding the complex and carport.

“You can’t get out of here without a gate opener,” Smith said.

Powell said investigators have interviewed residents but have no suspects.

It took more than 50 firefighters from seven fire departments to extinguish the blazes, which were fueled by wood shake roofs.

“We were fortunate that we didn’t have any Santa Ana winds,” Powell said. “If there had been winds, we probably would have lost the entire complex.”

Firefighters quickly extinguished one fire at the front of the complex. Intense heat from the flames prevented firefighters from immediately containing the other two fires, which burned in the back of the property.

As a result, those fires spread from the back carport to apartments above them. By morning, several apartments were blackened throughout. Gaping holes in the roofs exposed the hot morning sun.

Smith said her home was spared even though neighbors on both sides of her lost their apartments.

Seeing the flames, Smith and her son hurried out of their apartment and watched the blazes spread from behind fire lines in front of the complex.

“We just stood there and watched the flames go higher and higher,” she said. “We didn’t know if the building was going to be totally gone. . . . It was very frustrating.”

Fire officials credited residents with helping prevent injuries by shouting “Fire!” and banging on neighbors’ doors.

“To have a fire at 2 a.m. and have no injuries is really a miracle,” Powell said.

Tolmasoff said she knocked at doors throughout the complex in hopes of warning neighbors.

She pounded especially hard on the door of her immediate neighbor, an older man. Later in the morning, Tolmasoff said, the man thanked her, saying that he was in a deep sleep while the fire burned nearby and that her knocking woke him.

At least three apartments will have to be completely rebuilt, while six of the eight damaged units could be occupied again by next week, said Michael Lee, La Habra’s building official.

The American Red Cross provided fire victims with food and drink. All families left homeless found temporary shelter with friends or neighbors and did not need housing from the Red Cross.