Laguna Niguel : Pipe Bombs Found in Field Near Ziggurat

Seven pipe bombs, two of them carrying “live” explosive charges, were discovered Monday in a vacant field across from the Ziggurat building in Laguna Niguel, but they caused no injuries, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.

Members of the county Hazardous Devices Squad, who spent more than six hours examining the bombs, eventually determined that only two of them were live, Sheriff’s Lt. Tom Conner said. He said those bombs were “rendered safe” and then destroyed.

The other five bombs, he said, had been detonated some time before their discovery in the empty field across the street from the entrance to the Chet Holifield Building--owned by the federal government and known as the Ziggurat for its unusual shape.

The pipe bombs were discovered Monday morning by firefighters responding to a report of a small spot fire in the field, an county Fire Department dispatcher said.

Dispatcher David Kinneberg said Sheriff’s Department investigators were summoned to the scene Monday morning, but he referred other questions to the Sheriff’s Department.

Conner, who was not on duty Monday morning, said his understanding was that the Hazardous Devices Squad was summoned by the Fire Department at 1:50 p.m.

It took hazardous devices investigators until 8:35 p.m. to examine all of the explosives and determine that only two of them posed any danger, Conner said.

An investigation into how the pipe bombs came to be in the field is continuing, Conner said.