The day after

Deepa Bharath

COSTA MESA -- When Ken Burger heard his business was on fire Sunday

night he drove as fast as he could, he said.

He arrived at the commercial complex where he and his family have

operated their furniture and upholstery business for the last 17 years

only to see 40-foot flames leaping skyward.

“There was so much smoke, fire and water and all these firefighters in

their suits,” he said. “The building looked like a spaceship and the

whole place looked like another planet.”

The flames that had burned through Burger’s couches, leather and silk

upholstery also devastated 10 other offices in the building on Brioso

Drive.

It took more than 100 firefighters from five cities close to four

hours to contain the fire. No one was injured.

On Monday, business owners and employees looked into the building in

disbelief. Most of the offices were charred beyond recognition.

Wires hung loose and in bunches from the ceilings, ripped and

blackened. Ceiling and floor beams appeared melted and twisted out of

shape.

A notice board with flyers, charts and memos survived in one of the

still smoldering offices and stood out as an odd remnant of a workplace

that used to be.

What was once a conference room until Sunday evening looked like a

black and white picture on a yellowed page from some unknown war story,

the room’s ceiling crumbling and once plush, leather chairs ripped,

exposing sagging, yellow cushion.

Costa Mesa Fire Capt. Curt Yoder, who was walking around the building,

said the destructive force of a major fire still overwhelms him.

“I’ve been a fireman for 26 years and it still blows my mind when I

see the devastation,” he said.

The 10,000 square-foot, two-story building has been severely damaged

structurally and will probably be torn down, Yoder said. Fire

investigators will not be able to enter the building until this morning

-- when the building should be secured, he said.

Firefighters hosed neighboring buildings with water to keep them cool

and to keep the fire from spreading, officials said. Despite that effort,

Yoder said, the intense heat from the fire that was probably more than

1,000 degrees, melted a vinyl curtain at a neighboring residence and

ignited drapes by the window.

Firefighters poured more than 4,000 gallons of water per minute on the

structure to fight the flames. Neither a cause for the fire nor an

estimate of damages has been determined, fire officials said.

Joe Heavern saw nothing that was left of his ocean-view office on the

second floor of the building where, he said, he enjoyed working for a

computer software and accessories company for the last three years.

“You spend half your life at work and you accumulate so much

paperwork,” he said, shaking his head. “And it’s all gone in a flash.”

Heavern had his briefcase and his late father’s ring in his office.

“It’s gone and I feel really sad about it,” he said. “But I’m glad no

one was in there and I’m glad no one got hurt. You can always rebuild

broken buildings. But when people are lost, they are gone forever.”

* Deepa Bharath covers public safety and courts. She may be reached at

(949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at o7 deepa.bharath@latimes.comf7 .