2 Men Rescued After Boat Catches Fire Off Newport Beach Coastline

NEWPORT BEACH (CBSLA) – Good Samaritans came to the rescue of two men after their boat caught fire about 10 miles off the Newport Beach coastline Friday morning.

Orange County Sheriff's Department Harbor Patrol reports that the fire occurred on a 30-foot pleasure cruiser sometime before 10 a.m.

Two men in their 60s who were aboard were able to escape in a dingy. They were floating in the ocean when a good Samaritan boat came to their rescue.

The men were not hurt.

The harbor patrol, U.S. Coast Guard and O.C. Fire Department all responded and extinguished the blaze, although the boat was completely charred. It was being towed back to Corona del Mar.

There was no immediate word on what may have caused the fire or exactly how the rescue transpired. The two rescued men were not identified.

On Sept. 2, a dive boat fire off the Santa Barbara coast left 34 people. Five people, all crew members, escaped. The cause of that fire remains under investigation by multiple agencies, including the NTSB and the U.S. Coast Guard.