Fire chars 2 apartments

Marisa O’Neil

A two-alarm fire gutted two units of a West Bay Avenue apartment

building Wednesday morning.

Firefighters from four cities responded to the 11:25 a.m. fire in

the 500 block to find half of the four-unit building fully engulfed

in flames, Newport Beach Fire Division Chief Craig Chastain said.

Crews got the fire under control at 11:41 a.m., and fully

extinguished it a half an hour later, he said.

Nobody was home at the time of the fire, Chastain said.

Rolo Schwalde, who lives across the street, was just getting home

from work when he spotted the fire.

“I walked in to get a soda and turned around and there it was,

stuff flashing,” he said.

Debbie Teran lives a couple houses down from Schwalde and was

sitting in her living room when she first saw the flames through her

front window.

Teran ran outside to see if anyone was in the burning building and

flagged down a passing driver to call 911, she said. Her car was

parked in front and just as she went to move it, flames smashed the

windows of the apartments, she said.

“The glass just shot out,” she said.

Schwalde tried to pull his garden hose across the street but

realized it would do little good against the flames, he said.

Newport Beach firefighters then arrived at the scene and

immediately called a second alarm, Chastain said. Firefighters from

Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and the city of Orange also responded.

Just after noon, small puffs of smoke still wafted from the tile

roof. Fire crews with axes worked to ventilate the roof and to

extinguish hotspots.

Salvage operations continued until about 3:15 p.m., Chastain said.

The fire appeared to have started in the bottom unit but the cause

is still under investigation, he said. Two other units in the

building received minor smoke damage. Damage estimates haven’t yet

been determined.