Fire Destroys 2 Tustin Apartments

Three people, including a veteran Orange County firefighter, were slightly injured and nine people were left homeless this weekend after a blaze tore through an apartment complex in Tustin, fire officials said Sunday.

The firefighter, whose name was not released, suffered steam burns to his wrists, said Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Paul Hunter. The firefighter, who has been with the department for more than 10 years, was treated and released from Western Medical Center-Santa Ana late Saturday, Hunter said.

“When you get hit with hot water, even through clothing, you can get burned,” Hunter said.

Two residents of the fourplex on Poppy Drive also sustained burns on their arms, but they were treated on the scene and did not require hospitalization, Hunter said.

The fire broke out about 9 p.m. Saturday. Firefighters determined that it was ignited by paint cans stored in a 4-by-2-foot closet for a water heater. The two-alarm fire caused an estimated $300,000 in damage, Hunter said.

“The moral of the story is that you don’t store things right next to a hot-water heater,” Hunter said. “They need a little bit of area, some space. With hot-water heaters turning off and on, it doesn’t take much to get a fire going.”

Firefighters recommend, for commercial buildings, a clearance of at least 36 inches around a water heater.

More important, Hunter said, is that people avoid placing combustibles--including wood, paper, boxes, clothing and cans of paint and lacquer--near a water heater.

Hunter said the same holds true for furnaces, which people are turning on now that an autumn chill is in the air.

At the complex, just south of the Santa Ana Freeway and west of Tustin Ranch Road, several quart-sized cans of paint were on a metal shelf in the water heater closet, Hunter said.

The two interior two-story apartments were gutted; the two adjacent single-story apartments sustained smoke and water damage.

Structural damage was estimated at $200,000, with about $100,000 worth of possessions destroyed. It was unclear whether the tenants had property insurance.

CarolAnn Moore, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said the agency is helping four children and six adults displaced by the fire.

The Red Cross is providing food, clothing and diapers as well as hotel lodging for two of the four families, Moore said.

The third family is staying with friends.

Moore didn’t know the whereabouts of the fourth family because they had left the scene before the Red Cross arrived. But the agency will provide services for that family if needed, she said.