Those fleeing fires take refuge in south O.C.

They began arriving late Monday, people displaced by the San Diego County fires seeking refuge from the red flaming storm.

By early Tuesday, many of the estimated 500,000 people comprising the largest evacuation in California history had settled into rented rooms along the south Orange County coast, a massive exodus causing problems of its own.

“Most everything up and down the street is full,” said Nolan Redman, the night receptionist at Seacliff Laguna Inn on South Coast Highway in Laguna Beach, where 20 of 27 rooms were occupied by San Diego County residents fleeing the fires.

The story was similar at nearby Laguna Beach Inn. “A few of them are hysterical,” manager Erich McIntosh said of the 16 unexpected guests he had seen. “They’re worried about their whole lives burning to the ground. I put some Jimmy Buffet music on to lighten the mood.”

Jill McKee, 50, hadn’t really noticed the music; she was too busy wondering whether her house was still standing.

“We’re a little anxious because we don’t really know,” she said after receiving word that her sister-in-law’s home was among those destroyed.

McKee had come to Laguna Beach with her husband, his 92-year-old invalid mother, two children, several neighbors and the family dog.

“We didn’t think we’d be here this long,” she said. “We went to Target this morning and spent a fortune on supplies. We feel lucky that we’re not in a stadium.”

In another room of the motel, neighbor and family friend Cindy Chavez, 50, kept watch over the family’s elderly matriarch, Natalie, who suffers from pulmonary disease and needs oxygen to breathe.

“The sky turned orange and red, and the ash started coming down like a volcano,” Chavez said. “The whole neighborhood is here.”

To help the refugees find comfort, the Laguna Beach Inn is offering 30% discounts on regular $129 daily rates, and Seacliff has temporarily lifted its restrictions on pets.

A few miles south, in San Clemente, “no vacancy” signs hang outside ocean-view resort hotels where crowds have transformed a normally sleepy weekday beach town into something resembling a carnival. Every table at the waterfront cafes is filled, and evacuees with dogs, trailers and cars full of household possessions line every block.

Dave Henderson, 43, spent Monday night at the San Clemente Cove Resort Condominiums with his wife and 13-month-old daughter after evacuating the Del Mar area ahead of the order so that the baby wouldn’t have to breathe smoky air.

“It could be a lot worse,” he said as waves crashed at the nearby pier and people passed with surfboards.

He said hotel clerks were helping by providing referrals to people like him, who had been able to book the condo for only one night. Now, Henderson said, he’d just have to make a few calls to be able to move.

“The thing I learned,” he said, “is leave early! It’s less stress. You don’t think it’s going to reach you, so you want to stay. But live and learn.”

Back in Laguna Beach, meanwhile, Chavez was having some thoughts of her own:

“Hopefully when we go home,” she mused, “we’ll have a home. It’s going to be a mess.”

david.haldane@latimes.com

jill.leovy@latimes.com