8 Laguna Beach Fire Photos, Evacuations, Rekindle Memories From 28 Years Ago

LAGUNA BEACH, CA — A night of gusty winds and power outages gave way to a 145-acre wildfire Thursday. Residents of Laguna Beach communities of Emerald Bay, Irvine Cove and North Laguna Beach awakened with evacuation orders saying it was time to leave, now.

The firefight remained active through the morning with evacuations and closures, and Santa Ana winds kept the threat of the fire spreading alive.

"I was concerned because it seemed clear it was a fire, but I wasn't sure where/how far away, so I started looking on Google and Twitter to track down what was going on," Sarah Shtylman of North Laguna Beach told Patch. "I couldn't find anything conclusive except for other user-submitted photos, so I took photos and videos and posted them."

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As flames erupted over the ridge, firefighters and sheriff's deputies knocked on doors starting around 4 a.m. alerting residents to flee their homes as the wind-driven flames edged closer.

Before sunrise, at 6 a.m., officials happened upon the door of Marshall Aren, a longtime resident who lives near North Pacific Coast Highway and High Drive in North Laguna Beach.

"I thought I had a bad dream," he told Patch.

Aren lived through the fires in 1993 that ravaged Laguna Beach, destroying 441 homes, devastating the community and forever changing longtime residents' opinions about wildfire.

Back then, he resided in a tiny downtown studio apartment in the Village area. As evacuations were ordered, he filled his small car with meager belongings, including pictures and favorite CDs, then watched the news as Laguna Beach burned. The images were seared in his memory, he said, and so was what happened afterward.

"There was such a feeling of community in Laguna Beach after the 1993 fire was over," he said about how the city banded together at the time. "The community spirit the fire created was beautiful to behold."

Much has changed since 1993.

On Thursday, he and his wife, Angela, evacuated their home again.

They grabbed important papers, jewelry, old photos and, of course, his camera. He is the administrator of the Laguna Beach: Life Through the Camera Lens Facebook group, and diligently supplied photos for his friends and fans as Thursday's fire sent an orange glow into the sky.

"After that, it was some clothes, food, framed irreplaceable pictures," he said. "It's really strange trying to prioritize anything other than the obvious things."

He snapped photos of smoke on the water as the fire approached the El Morro ridgeline above Emerald Bay.

Strong winds blew smoke and ash, a vivid reminder of 28 years before.

The 1993 fire "was a terrifying beast," he recalled. "I was standing on the boardwalk when I saw the flames coming over the top of the hill behind the police station and City Hall."

That first day, thick black smoke blotted out the sun. Chunks of burning embers rained down on the coastal community.

"If the winds hadn't changed and shifted south right then, we would have lost at least some of downtown," he said.

On Thursday, the swift efforts of area firefighters helped keep the flames from North Laguna Beach homes. Work done on properties to provide defensible space aided their work.

Many residents balked at the thought of clearing brush around their homes from an aesthetic point of view, but Aren believed it just had to be done.

"I understand why some homeowners don't like being told what to do with their property, but sometimes it's about the larger good," he said.

Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy agreed.

With homeowners staying ready by providing defensible space around their homes and doing what they can to prepare their landscape to be "fire safe," perhaps there is hope during the yearlong fire seasons.

"A lot of what you see, you don't see," he said in a Thursday morning news conference. "Thanks to brush clearing in the city, county and state level, we don't get many roadside fires anymore."

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