The 1993 Laguna Beach fire

What happened

The fire began on Wednesday, October 27, 1993, during Santa Ana wind conditions. The Orange County Fire Department’s report to the county Board of Supervisors, signed by its director of fire services, Larry J. Holms, records five 911 calls at 11:50 a.m. about a fire on Laguna Canyon Road, south of the I-405 freeway. The first engine on scene found about two acres of grass and brush. The report gives that day’s weather as north to northeast winds of 40 miles an hour, with gusts up to 92 in the canyons, a temperature of 78 degrees and relative humidity of 6 to 7 percent.

By 12:28 p.m. the fire had split into several fronts moving toward Laguna Beach, Emerald Bay and El Morro, with flames 40 to 50 feet high. The report says the air tankers requested at 12:08 p.m. arrived about 1:40 p.m., because other fires were burning across Southern California. At its height the fire consumed an average of 45 acres and four homes a minute. It reached the El Morro Mobile Home Park, Emerald Bay, Skyline Drive, Canyon Acres and the Laguna Skyline area. That evening the winds shifted toward Irvine, and firefighters stopped the flames 50 feet short of homes in Turtle Rock.

The evacuation

The county report says firefighters and law enforcement evacuated more than 24,000 residents without radio communications between agencies. Police used both north and southbound lanes of Pacific Coast Highway to move traffic: residents went south while firefighters came in from the north. A National Fire Academy paper, hosted by the U.S. Fire Administration, says the entire city was evacuated and calls that a significant factor in there being no civilian deaths or serious injuries. It also notes that Laguna Canyon Road is the city’s only east-west entrance.

The numbers, and why they differ

Sources count different things. The county fire department’s report says the Laguna fire destroyed or severely damaged 441 homes, burned 14,337 acres and caused about $528 million in damage; a table of past fires in the same report lists 14,337 acres burned and 347 structures destroyed. The Laguna Beach Historical Society’s chronology says the fire destroyed 366 homes. The National Fire Academy paper says the fire consumed 363 homes and burned 14,437 acres, and it also cites Cal Fire for 441 structures lost. The federal Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center describes the whole October 26 to November 4 firestorm as three fires, Stagecoach, Laguna and Ortega, that together burned 36,000 acres and destroyed or severely damaged 469 homes. It calls the Laguna Fire the most destructive wildfire in Orange County history, in terms of property damage, up to that time. When you quote a number, name the source and what it counts.

The cause

The Historical Society’s chronology calls it a suspected arson-set fire and says no further information was ever found about how it started. The county fire department’s report lists the cause as arson in its table of the three fires, says the department had received more than 480 arson leads on the Laguna fire and related fires, and calls the Laguna fire investigation an open criminal fire investigation. The pages this guide cites name no one.

What changed afterward

The county report describes its first steps. Within days, county fire officials set up a Wildland-Urban Interface Task Force to produce three documents by July 1994: a model development standard for interface areas, recommendations for retrofitting developed areas and a model inspection and enforcement program. The report also describes state Assembly Bill 337, meant to identify Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones and set roofing and brush clearance requirements in them, and Senate Bill 1841, which requires state agencies, and local agencies that receive state disaster funds, to use a standardized emergency management system. The report also noted that a 550-acre prescribed burn in the upper Emerald Canyon watershed had been proposed for three years and was finally scheduled for late November, but the Laguna fire started on October 27, before the burn could begin.

The city says it updated its Safety Element in 1995, after the 1993 fires destroyed several hundred homes. Today the Laguna Beach Fire Department describes four vegetation management practices: weed abatement, fuel modification for new construction and major remodels, defensible space and a fuel break program maintained by goat grazing and hand crews. It also offers a free wildfire consultation to all property owners in the city, and says 87 percent of the city’s land area lies in the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones that CAL FIRE designates. The Police Chief wrote in January 2025 that the city had invested more than $25 million in wildfire mitigation and divides the city into 22 evacuation zones. The emergency alerts and wildfire guide covers alerts, zones and clearance rules, and the home insurance guide explains how coverage works in fire zones.

Learning more

The Historical Society posts a chronology and has video of two anniversary talks by Gene Felder, one in October 2013 for the 20th anniversary and one in October 2018 for the 25th. Its Memories page links a memoir, “1993 Memories of the Laguna Beach Fire,” by Belinda Blacketer. The city’s Wildfire Videos page lists a video titled Laguna Beach Fire 1993. For the wider story of the town, see Laguna Beach history and landmarks.