Fires sweep into Orange County
More than 100 homes have been damaged or destroyed in Yorba Linda, Corona and Anaheim Hills. Brea-Olinda High school is ringed by fire. Parts of the 91 and 57 freeways are closed.
Reporting from Orange County — Firefighters are battling two fast-moving fires that have burned more than 100 structures over a large swath of hillside land in Corona, Yorba Linda, Anaheim Hills and Brea. Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda were the hardest hit communities, losing dozens of homes and and apartment units.
At least 30 homes in Yorba Linda have been damaged or destroyed in a fire that began in Corona and burned several homes there. That blaze jumped the 91 Freeway and was burning homes in Anaheim Hills, where at least 10 homes and 50 units in a large apartment complex were destroyed or damaged.
A second fire, in Brea, has surrounded Brea-Olinda High School and is burning around the 57 Freeway.
Residents in Anaheim Hills were told to evacuate as the fire burned residences in that upscale community.
The fires created a surreal and chaotic scene as motorists were marooned on freeways or local thoroughfares. Some scrambled to evacuation centers or tried to return to their homes. Authorities said the westbound 91 Freeway at Weir Canyon had been closed, as was a section of the 57 Freeway in Brea, making it tough for residents to escape.
As of midafternoon today, 16 homes in Corona had been destroyed or damaged.
The speed of the fire caught some, including Mike Goff, off guard.
Goff said his wife called him about 9 a.m. and said there was a fire in an aqueduct about a mile from their Golden Ridge home in Corona. The 50-year-old and his son went outside to water their home and noticed that a palm tree in front of the house was ablaze. When Goff climbed a 10-foot ladder to try to extinguish the burning tree, he noticed his next-door neighbor's house was on fire.
"I didn't even know their house was on fire," he said.
The blaze started as a brush fire in Corona on Prado Road and quickly spread to a subdivision known as Dean Homes in the northwest part of the city.
Not far away, Bob Klein slumped on a sidewalk in front of a smoldering house at 11409 Alder Creek Road, watching as firefighters hacked into the burning garage to salvage what was left of it.
"It just went so fast you didn't even have time to think," said Klein, 53.
He had been up for hours watering his home at 11453 Alder Creek Road. When he moved into the Santa Ana Canyon home 21years ago, there was nothing but dirt roads. Every year, when he saw smoke in the Santa Ana Mountains, he would dutifully pull out his garden hoses to make sure he was prepared. But the fire never approached the neighborhood. Today, he was startled to realize homes down the street from his were aflame.
"I just couldn't believe it. It's just been chaos," he said. "Most people are like me just keeping their houses wetted down. The other people just got the hell out."
"This is what really scares me," he added. "Not earthquakes, it's these fires that will kill people around here."
In Brea, wind-whipped flames pushed flames close to a large office park near the intersection of Wildcat Way and Lambert Road, prompting evacuations.
The fire has surrounded Brea Olinda High School but has not reached the campus. Smoke and flames were so thick it was nearly impossible to see the school buildings.
Santa Ana winds were blowing heavily in the area near Valencia Avenue at Carbon Canyon Road, and the flames were moving toward homes and the 57 Freeway.
christopher.goffard@latimes.com
my-thuan.tran@latimes.com
mike.anton@latimes.com
