Two more boats up in flames in Huntington Harbour, one week after earlier fire
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Local fire and marine safety personnel called Wednesday afternoon to Huntington Harbour by a report of a fire arrived on scene to find two boats tied to one another both engulfed in flames, a department spokesperson reported.
Huntington Beach Fire Department Capt. Steve Teasdale said the incident occurred shortly after 1 p.m., when an individual in the 16000 block of Ardsley Circle called to report a blaze at a nearby residential dock.
“Firefighters arrived to find both boats involved in fire and quickly worked to bring the fire under control,” he said, adding that the response was aided by a water-carrying vessel from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Harbor Patrol Division, which regularly monitors the harbor.
Crews made short work of extinguishing the blazes, using the boat-mounted water cannon as well as multiple hose lines from different vantage points on the ground. Neither boat was occupied at the time of the incident, and no injuries were reported, according to Teasdale.
The origin point and cause of the fire is being investigated. After the flames had been doused, HBFD’s Hazardous Materials team placed absorbent booms in the water as a precaution to capture any potentially spilled fuel, fluids or other possibly harmful runoff from the damaged vessels.
Wednesday’s fire is just a short distance away from another boat fire called in shortly before 1 p.m. on Sept. 23. In that incident, a 33-foot express cruiser called “Nautical Nonsense,” also tied to a residential slip, became engulfed in flames.
The cause of that fire is still under review, but the two separate incidents are not being investigated as connected or suspicious in nature, Teasdale said.
Damage on the two boats tied together Wednesday was significant enough to obscure their names. Teasdale confirmed Thursday the owners were present at the harbor Wednesday and communicated with responders on scene, although their names have not been released.
The boats are both described as roughly 40-foot Pacifica crafts, likely used for sportfishing. By Thursday morning, one had become partially submerged. Teasdale said an insurance company had contacted a third party to arrange for the salvaging of the vessels.
Updates
3:30 p.m. Oct. 1, 2026: This story has been updated with information from the Huntington Beach Fire Department on the type of crafts and comments on the pending investigation.
