Fire That Leveled Warehouse Set by Homeless for Warmth : Menace: Wind-fanned Anaheim blaze threatened other structures and caused evacuation of nearby homes.

ANAHEIM — Homeless people trying to stay warm accidentally set a fire that consumed an abandoned warehouse and threatened other nearby structures, fire officials said Wednesday.

Stoked by Santa Ana winds, the fire at South Vine Street near Broadway was reported to the Fire Department at 9:35 p.m. Tuesday and prompted evacuation of nearby homes as 40 firefighters worked to keep the blaze from spreading, said Steve Magliocco, a division chief with the Anaheim Fire Department.

The fire, in a city-owned warehouse that was scheduled for demolition, underscored a problem that the county’s homeless face each night: a search for safe shelter, said Tim Shaw, a director at the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force.

“When something like this happens, it kind of puts an exclamation point on the problem” of homelessness, Shaw said. “They were just trying to keep warm. It’s sad that someone has to stay in an abandoned home to stay warm.”

Low temperatures in Orange County dipped to about 45 degrees Tuesday night, the National Weather Service said.

About 250 beds in two National Guard armories open to homeless men and women in Orange County when the temperature drops below 40 degrees or meteorologists predict rain, said Ron Roluffs, a housing and redevelopment official with the county. But, under an agreement with the state, the armories in Fullerton and Santa Ana will not open until December, Roluffs said. Firefighters stayed at the site overnight to guard against embers reigniting in the wood and brick structure, Battalion Chief Benny Ramirez said.

The structure’s old wooden beams “are hard to ignite, but when they ignite they are hard to extinguish,” Ramirez said.

An unrelated fire across town early Wednesday tore through part of a strip mall on South Knott Avenue, fire officials said. The cause of that fire is under investigation.

No one was injured in either fire, officials said.

As firefighters battled the blaze at the 30,000-square-foot warehouse on South Vine Street, westerly winds carried hot embers toward clusters of homes. Since the warehouse was fully engulfed in flame when firefighters arrived and already marked for demolition, fire officials decided to concentrate on preventing the fire’s spread, Magliocco said.

Buildings near the burning structure were doused with water. Some hot embers ignited nearby palm trees but were quickly doused, Magliocco said.

The strip mall fire on South Knott Avenue, reported shortly after midnight, caused about $350,000 damage to a cleaning shop and sporting goods store, Magliocco said. Other businesses in the strip mall in the 1200 block of South Knott Street had water and smoke damage, he said.

About 40 firefighters battled that blaze for more than an hour before it was extinguished, Magliocco said. Firefighters from Buena Park and the County Fire Department were called in to help fight the fire.