[1] It was one of many wildfires in a massive conflagration that spanned across the state from September 22 to October 4, 1970.
[3] The Laguna Fire was started by downed power lines during Santa Ana winds in the Kitchen Creek area of the Laguna Mountains on the morning of September 26, 1970.
In only 30 hours, it burned westward about 32 miles (51 km) to the outskirts of El Cajon and Spring Valley.
[4][1] The Laguna Fire remained among the twenty largest California wildfires until as late as 2020, fifty years later,[2] but it was surpassed by larger, more recent fires and no longer ranks among them.
[5] Cal Fire records the Laguna Fire as having destroyed 382 structures,[6] but reporting by The San Diego Union-Tribune indicates that that figure accounts only for the number of homes destroyed, with more than 1,000 additional structures (such as outbuildings or commercial buildings) lost.