Raft helps fight Newport Beach fire

Firefighters from Newport Beach and Huntington Beach used a raft to

cross a 30-foot canal to extinguish a brush fire in county territory

behind a mobile home park Saturday night, said Ron Sutherland, Newport

Beach Fire Department Battalion Chief.

Firefighters commandeered the raft from residents of the Beach and Bay

Mobile Home Park. They then used shovels, boat cutters and fire

extinguishers to quell the fire, Sutherland said.

“It was not much of a fire,” Sutherland said. “There was a chain-link

fence there. We covered the whole area with dirt.”

The fire, relegated to vacant oil fields near West Coast Highway and

Highland Street in Newport Beach, was reported at 7:56 p.m. Saturday.

Firefighters put the fire out by 8:30 p.m.

Authorities could not determine a cause of the fire, but believe

someone ignited it, Sutherland said.

“There are no power lines in the area and there was no lightning,”

Sutherland said.

If the fire had gotten any larger, Sutherland said he would have

called in units from the Orange County Fire Authority for assistance.