A 3-year-old boy was taken to a downtown Los Angeles hospital several weeks ago after a street vending cart tipped over, drenching him with boiling water. The burns on his chest, genitals and hands were so severe he needed to be transferred immediately to a burn center for skin grafts and other special care.

But no beds were available in any of Los Angeles County's three burn centers. Or in Orange County. Or San Diego County.

Seven hours after his accident, a burn center in Fresno finally agreed to take him, said Dr. Cheryl Lee, an emergency physician at White Memorial Medical Center who arranged the transfer. A helicopter took the boy away, leaving his parents behind because there was no room for them on board.

Los Angeles County's three burn centers have a total of 12 intensive-care beds that are currently staffed, down from 34 two years ago, according to a tally by officials at the Hospital Council of Southern California.

Increasingly, all of these beds are occupied, forcing local burn victims to be flown to other counties or even out of the state for care.

By contrast, Orange County residents have no difficulty getting into the area's only burn center, a highly regarded, eight-bed unit at UCI Medical Center in Orange, experts on emergency care said.

"We haven't had any problems with our own patients. None whatsoever," said Betty C. O'Rourke, an Orange County official who monitors emergency medical care. In a recent county study of 51 burn patients, all those with moderate or major burns were appropriately transferred to UCI, she said.

Barbara Patton, director of nursing at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, agreed: "I haven't heard of any problems getting beds. You just call and get a bed."

But for years, the UCI burn unit has turned away Los Angeles County residents who lacked health insurance, said its director, Associate Professor of Surgery Bruce Achauer.

"We can handle the burn load" of insured and uninsured patients from Orange County, Achauer said.

Even though the ward is often full, the plastic surgeon said, he and his colleagues make space for a major burn victim by transferring a nearly healed patient from their intensive-care ward.

But "if we took all the people in Los Angeles County--a county of 8 million--and we started treating them at our burn unit, we'd be totally swamped," Achauer said.