The memories haven’t faded

BARBARA DIAMOND

I learned to hate fire on Oct. 27, 1993. It has no mercy. And I hate

the people who start fires on purpose. For them, I have no mercy.

It’s been 10 years since an unknown arsonist started the fire in

Laguna Canyon that ravaged our town. I haven’t yet forgiven, let

alone forgotten.

I remember the smells, the sounds and the anguish.

Like a lot of people here I date everything, B.F. or A.F. --

before or after the fire. I had the flu -- the year before the fire.

We re-shingled the house -- oh, a couple of years before the fire. We

planted a lime tree -- after the fire.

The fire changed the way I thought about a lot of things. Because

of it, the new roof on the house is plastic, not the wood shingles

that I coveted for my 1906 bungalow. It’s only been within the last

year or so that I have started to use my fireplace again, learning

again to equate burning logs on a rainy night with cozy.

For me, it started at about 11:30 a.m. that Wednesday -- that’s

when I first heard the sirens heading out to Laguna Canyon Road. It

was past my deadline, but I had nothing better to do, so I wandered

over to Station One. Fire Capt. Diz D’Isabella told me a brush fire

was burning in the canyon on county property -- the Laguna department

was helping out.

I wrote a quick little story, which my editor, Don Chapman,

thought he could still get into the paper. No one ever saw the story.

There were no papers delivered that Thursday. And not many people in

town to read them.

With an inferno raging through canyons and up hills and back down

-- the town was evacuated. Long lines of cars headed north and south

along the coast -- the only escape routes for vehicles. Mystic Hills

resident Martha Lydick had to keep pulling off to the side of the

road. Her precious 1967 Shelby GT 500 was not built to travel six

miles an hour, and it overheated -- like the fire wasn’t enough. But

she wasn’t leaving town without it. At one stop, she looked back at

the hillside.

“It looked like those photographs of a hydrogen bomb blast,” she

said.

My son, Paul, had ridden his motorcycle up to Top of the World

Elementary School to pick up my great nephew, John Fred, who lived

with his father at our Woods Cove home. We hung out as long as

possible, but I knew I had to get John Fred and my dog to safety on

the boat where his grandmother and grandfather lived in Dana Point.

John Fred packed a few things and then helped me gather up

photographs, legal documents and family mementos.

I do not have scrapbooks. I have scrap drawers, filled with my

three sons’ report cards, handprints that children give their moms on

Mother’s Day, gift tags from Christmases past and one lone copy of my

high school paper, of which I was the editor. I am a pack rat.

“What about your books?” John Fred asked.

The sun was blood red in the smoky sky as we drove south. John

Fred was so brave. I know he was scared, but he toughed it out,

probably trying to set me a good example.

School children, who were not picked up by family members or

friends, were taken first to Laguna Beach High School and then to

safety at Dana Hills High School.

There was no stopping the holocaust, despite the valiant efforts

of our firefighters and the hundreds who came to our rescue from all

over the California map and a couple from France. Did they ever

realize the depth of our gratitude?

Airplane tankers dumped fire retardant and smaller planes shuttled

back and forth from the ocean to pick up buckets of water. Such

little buckets.

Then the winds died. If there was ever a miracle, that was it.

Armed with a California Highway Patrol and an Orange County

sheriff’s office press pass, I had been able to get back into town.

The first place I hit was Kelly Boyd’s Marine Room. The bar stayed

open till the legal limit on Wednesday night and opened early

Thursday morning offering sanctuary to those who had no place else to

go.

At the command post at Main Beach, my heart twisted in the acrid

dawn air at Jeff Powers’ gallant happiness for Laguna Greenbelt

President Elisabeth Brown, who lived then in Laguna Canyon and whose

home was saved. The home Powers had remodeled the previous year was

gone.

“So how do you feel about losing your home?” was not a question I

cared to ask, no matter how much human interest the answer might

promise. Instead, I kind of gave questioning looks at people. They

responded with a sad shake of the head -- another home gone -- or a

reassuring smile, thank you God. Then, if they wanted, we talked.

Later that morning, I drove with architect Morris Skenderian up

into the fire zone. He wanted to search for something to bring his

former wife from her burned home. He found nothing there, but he did

pick up a little bronze cherub on the property of Hotel Laguna owner

Claes Andersen. Nothing was left of Andersen’s legendary wine cellar.

We passed block after block of ruins. Gas connections spurted

little jets of flame, all too reminiscent of eternal flames in

cemeteries. In my morbid state of mind, metal washing machines and

dryers that hadn’t burned looked like tombstones.

Of course, neither Skenderian nor I thought to take a mask. I

coughed for days, hoping my husky voice sounded sexy, but it was

probably like one of Laguna’s crows.

More than 400 homes were destroyed. Mine was not. I was so

grateful and I felt so guilty for being grateful I am told it is

survivor’s guilt. Sgt. Greg Bartz said it was the luck of the draw.

Had the winds not died, the whole town would have gone up in flames.

For days, the worst sound in the world was an unanswered

telephone. Answer the phone. Where are you? Are you OK? Answer

thephone.

Unbelievably, not a single life was lost -- and there was very

little looting. Police were everywhere, working without respite.

Strangely, the firestorm did not rob me of sleep. My petty

problems of early deadlines and no time to polish stories were

diminished by the disaster.