Fire Ravages Laguna Beach Businesses

Laura Downing stood across the street and watched as dense smoke and water damaged rows of new clothes hanging inside her Laguna Beach store on popular Forest Avenue.

“We just re-carpeted from El Nino two times this year . . . and now this. It’s depressing,” she said.

Downing’s store in the city’s downtown area had just about recovered from the battering storms and mudslides of El Nino when a fire Monday morning gutted the top floors of a Laguna Beach commercial building, damaging 12 businesses.

The fire, which began about 7:30 a.m., caused $4.5 million in damage. Three firefighters suffered minor injuries.

Eight businesses sustained moderate to heavy damage, Fire Chief Bill Edmundson said. It was not known whether they would reopen or what impact the fire would have on the shopping area, a favorite of tourists and locals for its restaurants, boutiques and art galleries.

Many of the shops, including Downing’s, had received holiday merchandise in anticipation of a good season.

“We had just stocked up for the Christmas season, and to show you how full we were, we had run out of clothes hangers,” Downing said. She plans to reopen as soon as possible.

“We need to reopen quickly and put this downtown area back in business,” Downing said.

Overall damage to the downtown area was minimal, said Bonnie Rohrer, president of the Chamber of Commerce.

“It doesn’t look devastated,” Rohrer said. “But the impact is on the human side for these business owners because of everything that has happened in the past. It’s a very painful reminder of the big Laguna fire where we lost 400 homes.”

Chamber officials took action and contacted real estate agents to search for available space to help relocate the destroyed businesses.

Edmundson said the fire probably began at Marie’s Spa on the second floor. The cause is under investigation.

Another store that suffered damage was Emporio Optics, a single-story store adjacent to the burned building. Manager David Dixon said they just celebrated the store’s grand opening Friday.

“You see that brick wall?” Dixon said, pointing to the fire-ravaged building. “We share that wall. It’s our interior wall. We’ve put up our eyeglass cases and other products on that wall. I can’t imagine what it looks like now.”

Nearby, a group of health spa employees huddled together on the sidewalk, crying and surveying the damage.

“I can’t believe it started there,” employee Jeanne Boyle said. “We use a lot of electricity, but we always make sure to unplug everything.”

Boyle said the spa was closed on Sunday and is closed Mondays.

Insurance businessman John Campbell, whose office is adjacent to the health spa, said one of his employees called the Fire Department after noticing smoke pouring through the door of the spa.

“This is a major setback,” Campbell said. “This is a monumental expense.”

Campbell said his business suffered major damage and will have to be rebuilt.

On a positive note, Campbell said his entire record-keeping system was computerized and saved by his wife, Lu, last week.

“I preach this to all my clients,” Campbell said. “Save on a weekly basis. If you don’t, it’ll cost you in the long run.”

Photographer Mark Chamberlain, whose studio and gallery occupy one of the second-story offices, was at work when he heard the firetrucks.

“I was inside, working away,” Chamberlain said. “Just as the firetrucks pulled up, I smelled smoke and decided to check out a trapdoor leading from my place to the roof. But when I opened it, the area to the roof was filled with smoke.”

Chamberlain closed the door and ran to get his video camera. He then put plastic sheeting over his equipment and photographs and negatives for protection. As firefighters entered the building and climbed upstairs to his studio, Chamberlain guided them to the trapdoor and then left the building as ordered.

Chamberlain said he was worried about valuable photographs and negatives that he shot of flooding in recent years, part of the evidence the city is gathering in its pending civil lawsuit against the Transportation Corridor Agencies.

According to the lawsuit, the agency, which constructed a nearby toll road, allegedly failed to build adequate retention basins and ignored its own environmental impact reports. The agency has denied those charges.

It took more than 45 firefighters nearly two hours to get the fire under control, officials said.

Injured were reserve Capt. John Luna and firefighters Joe Maxson and Tom Christopher. Luna, who was hit on the head by falling debris, was treated and released at South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach. Maxson and Christopher both suffered shoulder injuries. They were taken to a doctor’s office and later released.

Edmundson said many shops in the same block, including Downing’s store, had no electrical power and had smoke and water damage.

The fire caused $1.5 million in damage to structures and $3 million in damage to contents of the businesses, Edmundson said.

Edmundson said the brick building, built in 1916, lacked fire sprinklers but was retrofitted to update firewall protection. He said there was enough old wood in the attic to allow the fire to spread.

“But we had two beautiful firewalls that prevented the fire from spreading further,” he said.

Edmundson said firefighters would have gotten the fire under control earlier but were hampered when the building’s roof collapsed. Firefighters were forced to retreat and fight the flames from the building’s perimeter, he said.

“With the roof down, it created a lot of smaller fires in the voids, or the spaces beneath the collapsed roof,” Edmundson said.

Despite the building’s age, it was not on the city’s historic list, said John Gustafson, a Laguna Beach building officer. The masonry building had been strengthened in 1991 and was in compliance with city codes, Gustafson said.

Orange County Fire Authority firefighters also fought the blaze.