He attended journalism school at Boston University. Josh Cain's interest in writing and reporting the news started as a kid growing up in Orange County, California. The city also added fire detection cameras and two helicopter filling stations. Evacuation routes have been improved by adding signage and installing signals that can be turned green to aid in evacuations. Power poles - in areas such as Bluebird Canyon, Coast Highway and Park Avenue - will be buried. And has created a new city position for a fire inspector to oversee brush removal and serve as a fire-preparedness resource for residents. The fire department has expanded its fuel modification program - done by brush-eating goats and hand crews. The Fire Safety Mitigation plan was developed over seven months with data collected from trips to Paradise, the Northern California town virtually destroyed by the Camp Fire. In 2019, the Laguna Beach City Council passed the first phase of a $166 million plan to make the city safer against fire threats. One in 2012 that broke out in the vegetation-laden canyon above Ruby’s Diner, a 2015 fire in Laguna Canyon that erupted when power lines sparked and a fire in June 2018 in Aliso & Wood Canyons that scorched 200 acres of wildland brush, threatening dozens of Laguna Beach homes on the ridges above. There have been four fires in the last decade. Still, the city and its surrounding open space are designated by Cal Fire as a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. One point of contention during that fire was the lack of available water for fire crews.Now, more than a quarter-century later, the city has greater access to water for dousing flames, homeowners must follow stricter guidelines, trees and vegetation must be removed from around homes to create more defensible space and firefighters have more technology. In 1993, the Laguna Beach fire lasted less than a day, but torched 441 homes, burned 14,000 acres and left $528 million in damages. “If it starts to come down here and we have to leave, we’ll leave,” Mello said while standing at the entrance to Irvine Cove and PCH as helicopters dropped water on the charred hills behind the community. Mello was helping her husband spray down their property when she realized that Thursday’s fire did not appear to be spreading in the same, uncontrolled manner as the blaze she remembered 27 years ago. She and her husband gathered their passports, IDs and other valuable documents and packed the car. And you could see the ash falling from the sky.” “You definitely had to have your mask on. “The sky was dark and very smokey,” Mello said. Mello, 54, ventured outside and saw a large gray plume rising from the hills across the street from her home. She immediately thought of that experience after receiving a text about the Emerald fire at about 5:15 a.m. Oceanfront homes in Irvine Cove have frequently topped lists of the county’s most expensive sales of the year.ĭiane Mello moved into Laguna Beach in 1993, shortly before the last major fire in that city, which destroyed hundreds of homes. Billionaire Warren Buffet has owned and sold two homes in Emerald Bay. Strike teams planned to work throughout the night to contain any hotspots that pop up, and operations would begin again in the morning with air support where needed, he said.Įmerald Bay and its gated community neighbor, Irvine Cove, both in unincorporated Orange County, have some of the priciest residential real estate in the county.
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Holaday said he was confident the lines would hold up throughout the evening after they did so during the afternoon wind. The crews used bulldozers to dig out lines of soil along the perimeter of the fire to prevent it from spreading further. High winds expected in the evening were an initial concern, but Holaday said crews were able to establish firebreak lines around Boat Canyon and Moro Ridge. 3 dead in fiery crash in Orange DUI suspected