FIRE GUTS HOMES AT BUILDING SITE 11 HOUSES UNDER CONSTRUCTION ARE RUINED.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Eleven $300,000-plus tract houses under construction were destroyed and two others were damaged in a fire on Thursday morning that may have been started accidentally by a plumber working in the east Palmdale housing tract.

The unfinished homes ignited ``like matches'' after the fire broke out just before 10 a.m. in the Pacific Discovery subdivision, firefighters said, sending flames more than 30 feet into the air and raising a plume of smoke visible throughout the Antelope Valley.

``It was like a tinderbox going up. Our guys really took a pounding,'' Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Mike McCormick said.

The cause was being investigated, but the preliminary indication is that the fire was caused by a worker soldering copper pipes, fire officials said.

Reported at 9:48 a.m., the fire gutted a portion of Newport Beach-based Pacific Communities Builder's tract at Avenue S and 65th Street East. Unfinished two-story houses along Trapani Avenue burned, as did houses between that street and Avenue S. Houses on the western end of the tract were relatively unscathed.

``The origin and cause of the fire are under investigation. As soon as the investigation is completed, we will begin reconstruction,'' said Thomas F. Zimmerman, general counsel for Pacific Communities Builder.

A Fire Department helicopter normally used to fight wildfires was put to work dumping water on the burning homes.

``It can drop 1,000 gallons at a time,'' said Fire Department spokesman Mike McCormick. ``It really helped save some of the other homes nearby.''

A bulldozer was brought in to knock down the homes that were destroyed.

In all, about 60 firefighters from 10 engine companies, two truck companies and a camp crew fought the flames in 100-plus temperatures, knocking down the fire in about an hour.

The Pacific Discovery tract has homes with two to seven bedrooms and prices starting in the mid-$300,000s. Pacific Communities is building three other tracts in the Antelope Valley.

The fire was reminiscent of blazes that broke out during Antelope Valley's last home-building boom.

Fires in August and September 1989 destroyed 20 homes under construction at an east Palmdale housing tract, three at a Quartz Hill housing tract and 20 at a west Palmdale housing tract. The three 1989 fires were all blamed on plumbers using torches to assemble water pipes.

In 1990, a fire blamed on an arsonist destroyed 84 town homes under construction in the Marbella Villa complex in west Lancaster. A carpenter said to be angry about not getting paid was tried but acquitted after friends and relatives said he was at a family barbecue when the fire started.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) The fire may have been started accidentally by someone doing work on the housing tract, officials said.

(2 -- color) A firefighter points a hose at the blaze that broke out in the Pacific Discovery subdivision.

(3 -- color) A fire crew works to douse the flames, which damaged two homes and destroyed 11 at the housing tract.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer