A Nervous Laguna Keeps a Wary Watch

With the scent of smoke from blazes in San Diego and Los Angeles counties keeping nerves on edge in this city, firefighters, police and even senior volunteers roamed the hillsides and canyons Tuesday searching for any hint of fire.

“They’re jumpy, and understandably so,” Fire Chief William Edmundson said. “We’re getting at least tenfold our normal complaints” about possible fire hazards. “We’ve had people actually come to the office with Polaroids of neighbors’ lots, or what they think are fire hazards.”

Almost three years ago exactly--Oct. 27, 1993--a massive firestorm raced through this city, damaging or destroying 441 homes in and around Laguna Beach and causing a total property value loss of $528 million.

Since Monday’s fire in Lemon Heights, which destroyed 10 homes and damaged 23 buildings, residents here have had “an odd feeling in their stomachs,” Police Chief Neil Purcell said Tuesday. “It just brought back very ugly memories.”

Residents continued to call City Hall to report anything resembling smoke and to complain about fire dangers. One sighting turned out to be the real thing.

About 1:30 a.m., a police officer saw flames shooting from Kachina restaurant in downtown Laguna Beach, but firefighters extinguished the blaze before other businesses were damaged, Purcell said. The fire chief estimated the damage at about $200,000 and said the blaze was apparently caused by a malfunctioning electric motor in a refrigeration unit.

Later Tuesday, a call about what looked like smoke in Laguna Canyon sent all city fire engines racing to the Big Bend area, where the 1993 fire jumped Laguna Canyon Road. What firefighters discovered was a property owner with a leaf blower who was stirring up dust, Edmundson said. Leaf blowers were banned in Laguna Beach in 1993.

Meanwhile, with two of this city’s fire engines in the Malibu area helping to battle that blaze, local reserve officers were called in to make sure all four city fire stations were fully staffed,

“We’re working overtime,” Edmundson said. “I just can’t, in good conscience, draw the city down. Not with this type of fire hazard.” The hazardous conditions include very dry brush and the possibility of a “copycat” arson fire, he said.

“The Laguna fire was an arson fire, and we’re concerned somebody watching TV will try and repeat that situation here in Laguna,” Edmundson said. The arsonist has never been discovered.