Fires Leave Laguna Shaken but Wiser : * Seaside City, County Know What It Takes to Rebound

Two and a half weeks after the fire, Laguna Beach and the county at large are trying to reckon with lessons for the future.

One is how vulnerable every city is; a shift of the wind and a tract of million-dollar homes can become rubble. That’s why each city must be sure it has done as much as it can to avoid the devastation and is ready with evacuation plans if disaster does strike.

As for Laguna, there is important rebuilding to be done, of the landscape and of psyches. The city has been right to approve an ordinance quickly that speeded payment for cleanup work. It also has made progress in controlling erosion and stabilizing hillsides. The rainy season is upon us, as was all too evident last week when many houses were damaged by water and mud. The floods arrived without providing the battered city sufficient time to recover and prepare to deal with the next crisis.

Meanwhile, Laguna has suffered psychologically as its land has been scarred. The freedom from anxiety once enjoyed by the seaside community has been shaken. But it was also heartening to note in The Times Orange County Poll results that many believed their community would bounce back. Positive thinking, and a sensible re-evaluation of the city’s vulnerability to fire are needed as Laguna embarks on a new beginning.

There are lessons for the county as well. Fire departments across Orange County are wise to review their equipment and their plans to battle major blazes when they have the attention of their city councils and residents.

Newport Beach is concerned about brush that has not been cleared for years. Santa Ana is worried about overcrowded apartments. Both are fire hazards that have resisted easy correction.

And that illustrates another warning of the fires that have devastated Southern California: In our zeal to minimize the dangers, we must not be too hasty and impose solutions that are too harsh.

In Laguna Beach, we learned that canyon brush was uncleared for years, but for good reasons. Controlled burns by fire departments require weather and humidity conditions that are just right. Fire officials said the time when those conditions were suitable for setting fires to burn the brush coincided during the spring egg season of the protected California gnatcatcher.

The city also debated whether installation of a 3-million-gallon reservoir would harm the environment. The reservoir would serve the city in an earthquake as well as a fire, but perhaps a 1-million-gallon facility would be sufficient.

In Santa Ana, where more than a dozen people died in fires in cramped houses two years ago, the City Council cut occupancy limits in half. But a court rejected the new law because it was stricter than statewide standards.

Cities are constantly required to balance competing interests, weighing, in these cases, environmental versus fire hazards, or the benefit of a new helicopter for the County Fire Department versus its $300,000 cost in tough economic times.

There are no easy solutions, like simply paving over vegetation to create a fire break or just raising taxes to buy a helicopter. But these interests must be debated, and cities must realize how a simple shift of the wind can victimize them instead of a neighboring community. That’s why cities must act to reduce fire hazards and have evacuation plans ready if disaster does strike.

In these ways, Laguna and the rest of the county can approach the future somehow wiser for a terrible experience.