EDITORIAL: Fire brought change

Monday is the 15th anniversary of the horrific 1993 Laguna Beach firestorm, which claimed some 300 homes in the city “” but miraculously, no lives.

This anniversary comes as memories are still fresh from similarly devastating firestorms in the state last October.

Last year around this time, the frightening glow of wildfires was visible to the east from high points in Laguna, and the city was on high alert “” even beyond the red flag warning stage “” but the fires that raged in eastern Orange County and elsewhere stayed away and the city dodged a bullet.

Last week, the red flags were again up at fire stations in Laguna, and high fire danger warnings are all around the area this week “” but not along the coastline that includes Laguna Beach.

The Laguna Beach Historical Society has collected some fascinating facts on the 1993 wildfire.

Winds that day were as high as 90 mph “” and an arson fire in what is now Laguna Wilderness Park easily became a runaway train that engulfed the city in minutes.

The 1993 fire was truly a watershed incident in that so many things changed in its wake, things the community now takes for granted.

For one thing, the goats that some love to watch on the hillsides “” and that generate complaints from others “” were a response to the need to keep fire fuels, that is, vegetation, minimized in hilly resident-adjacent areas that are difficult for humans to traverse.

The volunteer fire watchers who spring into action on “Red Flag” days were another result of the 1993 fire.

And the Laguna Beach Resource Center was also born from the ashes of the fire.

The Resource Center is an all-volunteer organization that does so much good in the community it really cannot be overstated.

The volunteers came together in 1993 to help those who lost their homes to the raging fire, and 12 years later, they did the same for a much smaller group of evacuees from the Bluebird Canyon landslide.

But the Resource Center hasn’t confined its activities to disaster relief. The good-hearted volunteers collect and distribute food, clothing and even household supplies for families who need them at any time, and also provide the only emergency help for homeless people in the city.

It could be said that while much was lost in the 1993 firestorm, much was gained in Laguna.