O.C. Man Killed in Explosion at Home

A 65-year-old man who may have been working with a welding torch was killed Thursday in an early-morning explosion that damaged homes, melted car tires and rained debris throughout a Costa Mesa neighborhood

Residents in the Monticello Townhomes complex said the 3:30 a.m. blast rocked the neighborhood--blowing out windows, ripping doors from hinges and crumpling metal garage doors.

“It blew up like a bomb went off,” said Mark Galoustian, who has lived in the neighborhood for two years. “Our bedroom shook. We looked out the window, and the whole place was a fireball.”

Fire officials said the explosion, which was followed by a series of smaller blasts, was heard by firefighters at a station four miles away.

The man killed in the explosion has not been identified but was described as a quiet retiree who kept to himself. Neighbors said he had lived in the complex for several years.

Neighbor John Leighton said the man rushed from his garage after the blast, his clothing on fire. Leighton said he sprayed him with a fire extinguisher, but the man then turned and ran back inside his burning garage.

“I don’t know why he did that,” said Leighton, a 15-year resident of the tract. “He didn’t say anything.” The man’s body was later found just inside his garage, fire officials said.

Twenty residents were evacuated to a Red Cross shelter set up at nearby Vanguard University of Southern California.

Gas service was interrupted for several hours in the morning while crews searched for leaks, and some residents were without water for much of the day, said Barbara Marcosa, a spokeswoman for the Costa Mesa Fire Department.

In all, a dozen other townhomes--each worth about $250,000--were damaged.

Fire officials have not determined a cause for the explosion but said it came from the man’s home. His garage, they said, was stocked with welding materials, tanks and chemicals. A bomb squad was brought in later in the day to inspect to canisters and tanks in the burned-out garage.

The intensity of the fire forced firefighters to battle it from the street. It took 40 minutes to extinguish the blaze. By then, little more than a skeleton of the townhouse remained. Fire crews later brought in wooden beams to prop up the walls. The blast set off a frantic effort in the neighborhood to alert residents to the fire ignited by the explosion. Residents ran from house to house in the darkness, banging on doors and yelling for their neighbors to evacuate.

“When the first blast occurred, we thought it was an earthquake,” said Nancy Fay, who lives down the street and ran outside with a phone, dialing 911 as she screamed for neighbors to get out of their homes.

“Then the second popping noise hit, and we thought it was a bomb. And when the third one struck, we thought we were going to war,” she said.

Chris Minear said he and his wife, Carol, grabbed garden hoses, hoping to keep the fire from spreading. But they were pushed back as the man’s house was swallowed by flames.

“There wasn’t too much you could do,” he said.

Larry Dawson said that the blast woke him and that when he looked out his broken bedroom window, he saw a man in flames stumbling from a garage. Dawson said he grabbed a blanket to help smother the flames and ran outside.

But when he got there, the man was gone. Dawson said that he ran toward the burning house but that the heat drove him back.

Neighbors said the man killed in the blast was quiet and reserved yet friendly.

One neighbor, who knew him only as “Sonny,” said he helped her with a plumbing problem. Others said he would offer wood and other supplies to kids building skateboard ramps.

Mostly, though, he woke early and worked on bicycles in his garage, often using welding equipment, neighbors said.

“He was real quiet, and he didn’t get into a lot of conversations,” said Julia Cross, who serves on the homeowners association board. “He just kind of stayed to himself and liked to putter around in his garage.”

Sam Manfrey, who has lived in the complex about four years, said he’d wave to the man or say hello, but he never learned his name.

A spokeswoman for the complex’s property management company, Chrissy Gruninger, said the man rented the townhouse from a Newport Beach couple.

The management company said there are no rules barring the use or storage of welding torches in the complex.