Oct 13, 2008 8:37 pm US/Pacific
O.C. Brusher Contained At 50 Acres
NEWPORT BEACH
Fire that blacked 50 acres in Bonita Canyon in Newport Beach Monday led to evacuations of residents from homes along three streets but damage was limited to one small roof fire, officials said.
The fire in brush off Bonita Canyon Drive was reported at 3:21 p.m. and officials initially said it had reached 100 acres.
However, after it was contained at 5:15 p.m., officials got a better look and reduced the number of affected acres.
"When the smoke is gone, you can see better," Newport Beach Fire Department spokeswoman Jennifer Schulz said.
Bonita Canyon, which is north of the San Joaquin Reservoir, is dotted with eucalyptus trees, which produce a lot of oil, and are a challenge when it comes to extinguishing flames, KCAL9 reported.
Some power poles burned, and Southern California Edison was called out to de-energize them by shutting off power, according to TV reports.
Evacuations took place on homes along three streets -- Port Aberdeen, Port Carlisle and Port Durness, Schulz said. She said did not know how many people were involved.
Many buildings in what is known as Phase 3 of the Harbor View homes stem from the 1970s and still have wooden shake-shingle roofs, Channel 9 reported.
Newport Beach Fire Department Chief Steve Lewis said that at one time, the wooden roofs were "in vogue."
"We try to encourage individuals to replace those with other (roof) types, but sometimes they choose not to," Lewis said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
"We always start from a basis that potentially that it is suspicious, but we don't rule anything out and we have the investigators down there," Lewis said. "There are some power lines that go through there -- the wind wasn't up a whole lot at that point, but we're not ruling anything out at this point ..."
Lewis said fuel "down here was pretty heavy, so it was going up the canyon, it was moving up it pretty quick, so all the units coming in with the helicopter drops were really saving us," he said.
"But all the units were jumping and, you know, skipping over each other to try to get to the next streets up and cover all the homes ... but it was actually moving pretty quick," Lewis said.
Lewis said the job is not over.
"We're going to be out here all night overhauling this and turning it all over," Lewis said. "We've got hand crews coming in, so we'll be out here all the way through tomorrow taking care of it, because if the wind kicks back up, we've had a few hot spots taking off on us again, so we're going to be vigilant about being out here and making sure we're taking care of business."
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
