Wind-Driven Fire Chars 5,200 Acres in O.C.

A fast-moving blaze apparently started by someone salvaging copper wire burned more than 5,200 acres of eastern Orange County on Tuesday, but spared thousands of foothill homes when a combination of luck, shift in wind direction and intense firefighting pushed it away from heavily populated areas.

Fanned by Santa Ana winds gusting to 100 mph, the fire--which began late Monday--roared through a sparsely populated area just west of Cleveland National Forest.

No injuries were reported, and the flames only burned two structures, both in Baker Canyon--a small home and an outbuilding. Four family members were briefly trapped in the house, but firefighters rescued them shortly after midnight, about an hour after the blaze began, said Elaine Gray, spokeswoman for the Orange County Fire Authority.

Smoke from the blaze stretched as far west as central Los Angeles by midday, casting an eerie amber light over the landscape.

By Tuesday evening, authorities said the fire was 35% contained, 15% controlled and heading into a wilderness area.

The blaze started near Black Star Canyon and Baker Canyon roads in a large steel container in which someone had ignited a pile of insulated copper wire. Apparently the person was attempting to salvage the copper for resale, Fire Battalion Chief Dan Runnestrand said.

No arrests had been made by Tuesday night, but authorities were seeking to question the owner of the property.

Santiago Canyon Road was strewn Tuesday with dead opossums, rats and rabbits that several motorists rushing to check on their homes had to dodge.

The area devastated by the fire is sparsely populated, dotted with small cabins. But the blaze forced 11 schools in well-to-do areas near Irvine, Santa Ana and Orange to close, and it shut down several busy roads for much of the day. With erratic winds shoving the fire from one direction to another, county officials declared a state of emergency in midafternoon, making the county eligible for federal and state assistance.

People in five communities near the fire--Cowan Heights, Lemon Heights, Tustin Ranch, Peters Canyon and the Northwood area of Irvine--waited nervously with bags packed throughout the day after firefighters and Orange County sheriff’s deputies warned them they might need to evacuate. About 1 p.m., the wind shifted, blowing toward the northwest, and the fire changed direction, moving toward Fremont Canyon and Irvine Park.

About 600 firefighters from as far as Ventura County battled the blaze.

Dan Dulac, 37, knew he was moving his family into fire country when he bought his Baker Canyon property 10 years ago. He followed firefighters’ advice to be ready for the worst, but no fire prevention manual could have prepared him for the sight of a 30-foot wall of flames barreling toward the house he built.

“You prepare and plan for this like I did for 10 years, but when it happens, you forget everything you learned before,” he said Tuesday. “I mean, this is incredible. These flames were taller than the trees.”

Firefighters managed to beat the blaze back from the home Dulac shares with his wife and three daughters, but not before it had burned a swath across his 100-acre ranch.

Fire Battalion Chief Mike Rohde said the flames at first closely followed the path of the 1967 Paseo Grande blaze, which destroyed 66 homes and 50,000 acres in Lemon Heights and the surrounding area. But quickly changing winds ended any hope of predicting the fire’s path.

Water-dropping helicopters and airplanes loaded with fire retardant roared through smoky skies to contain the flames. Ash rained on freeways throughout the county, traffic inched along on roads jammed with traffic detoured because of the fire, and a band of smoke covered a broad expanse of otherwise startlingly blue sky.

Throughout the day firefighters faced conditions ripe for burning: temperatures of 88 degrees, 16% relative humidity and Santa Anas. The blowing was not expected to let up overnight, with forecasts of 15 mph to 25 mph winds below passes and canyons and temperatures in the 80s.

“Firefighters are taking a beating because of the heat and the terrain and the wind,” Shell said.

After starting in Baker Canyon, Shell said, the fire moved south toward Silverado Canyon before the wind shifted direction about midday. That’s when the fire began moving northwest. By midafternoon, staff at the Orange County Zoo in Irvine Park were preparing to evacuate the animals from their pens.

When flames licked close to a toll road under construction, the Eastern Transportation Corridor, the newly graded ground served as a firebreak that blocked the blaze from jumping into tracts of new homes on the other side of the highway, said Gray of the county fire authority.

Firefighters’ early efforts to battle the blaze were hampered by the dark of night, which prevented the aircraft from being deployed until morning and limited ground crews’ movements into the burning brush.

At daybreak, tankers--and helicopters with giant water buckets--from the California Department of Forestry were dispatched to the scene, with 13 aircraft eventually used in the effort.

While ground crews were sent to the fire head and its perimeter, the tankers loaded with fire retardant laid down thick ribbons of the red chemicals on steep canyons nearly inaccessible by foot.

The smoke rose about 5,000 feet above the hillsides and then drifted west and northwest.

As the sky darkened and ash fluttered onto pavement as far away as Seal Beach, 11 public schools and several private schools closed for the day, with students complaining of burning eyes.

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Times staff writer Scott Martelle and correspondent Mimi Ko Cruz contributed to this story.

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* RISK FROM ASH: Widespread ash poses concern for those with respiratory problems, but not others. A3