Severe drought, gusty winds and sloping topography were a devastating combination for this seaside housing development in LagunaNiguel as the CoastalFire swept through the area.
The weather conditions were unremarkable for coastal Orange County, and even a bit pleasant: Mild temperatures, relatively moist air and a seasonal onshore breeze.
After the fire started on the hillside due west of the South Orange County Wastewater Authority treatment plant, county firefighters arrived within minutes to find the blaze had spread to at least an acre, Doran said.Firefighters trudged up the hillside with equipment and formed two flanks in hopes of extinguishing the blaze, he said. However, an ocean breeze drove the flames downhill and to the east. Winds peaked with gusts of up to 25 mph around 4 p.m.
“A matchstick — or any fire — is doing the same thing,” said Issac Sanchez, a battalion chief for communications at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Hot air rises, and because nature abhors a vacuum, air from the surrounding environment rushes in to fill the void, he said. But once flames reached those homes, the fire began to spread from structure to structure. Fennessy said the homes that he saw burn caught fire as a result of embers that blew into the attic space or became wedged into the roofing material.
The effect is amplified when the homes are close together, said Crystal Kolden, a professor of fire science at UC Merced. Kolden attributes the resurgence to the fact that fires are igniting closer to the built environment, as development continues to push into wildland areas. Meanwhile, the climate change-supercharged drought has made it more difficult for authorities to prevent fires from reaching these populated areas, she said.
Even if some homes had been retrofitted, Kolden added, if others hadn’t, the entire neighborhood could remain vulnerable, with embers either jumping hardened homes and igniting the next un-hardened structure, or finding a way to enter even the hardened homes.
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