Fire causes about $850,000 in damage No...

Fire causes about $850,000 in damage

No one was hurt in a Sunday evening fire which caused about

$850,000 in damage to a three-story Newport Coast home, Newport Beach

fire officials said.

The call came in at about 6:15 p.m. Sunday when the resident in

the 80 block of Anjou reported that he smelled smoke minutes after he

tried to turn on his fireplace, officials said.

The smoke detector went off, and the resident saw smoke in the

attic and called 911, said Jennifer Schulz, spokeswoman for the Fire

Department.

When firefighters arrived, they saw smoke coming out of the home

and immediately located the fire in the attic, she said.

Firefighters initially called a second alarm on the fire because

they believed it threatened adjacent homes, but later called off some

of those units, officials said.

The first floor was clear, but the second floor was blanketed in

smoke. The fire crew vented the roof to clear up the smoke and then

went about battling the blaze, Schulz said. They had the fire

extinguished in about 40 minutes, she said.

Twenty-three firefighters from Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and the

Orange County Fire Authority responded to the incident with two

engines, two trucks, a paramedic unit and a battalion chief. Schulz

said there was about $700,000 in structural damage and about $150,000

damage to contents. Only the second floor suffered severe smoke and

fire damage, officials said.

A leak or a break in the chimney pipe possibly sparked the fire,

investigators said.