Quick action puts down fire

A quick-thinking neighbor extinguished a fire in a Balboa

Peninsula apartment Friday afternoon.

Joe Bardes was getting ready to take a boat ride about 1:30 p.m.

when he smelled something burning. He ran to the apartment building

next door in the 2100 block of East Balboa Boulevard. With a cell

phone in one hand, he grabbed a garden hose with the other and popped

open the door as he was calling 911.

Bardes, who drew on his experience as a firefighter in New Jersey,

was able to put out the fire before it caused to the first-floor,

one-bedroom apartment and before fire crews arrived at the scene,

about three minutes later.

“I wanted to make sure [the occupant] wasn’t napping,” Bardes

said. “I didn’t want to take a chance.”

So far, the fire is considered to be nothing more than an accident

as remnants of four candles were found amid the debris where most of

the fire damage was, said Newport Beach Fire Capt. Dick Dart.

The blaze is still under investigation and caused about $2,000

worth of damage, Dart said.

No one was home when the fire broke out in the room. Bardes said

the apartment’s occupant is an older woman who was a caretaker for a

previous tenant of the building.

The blaze left some stereo equipment in a twisted, charred heap,

peeled a chunk of paint off the ceiling and blackened all of the

walls.

-- Deirdre Newman