Firefighters began to gain the upper hand on the Mountain Fire on Thursday as the weather turned in their favor, although the fire was still only 5% contained by the evening and had burned more than 20 square miles.
The fire started just after 9 a.m. Wednesday near Balcolm Canyon Road in rural Somis. Later that day, it jumped more than two miles south on Highway 118 into Camarillo, and homes in Camarillo Heights and other neighborhoods began to burn.
There was “no significant growth” of the fire in or near Camarillo on Thursday, said Nick Cleary, battalion chief with the Ventura County Fire Department. Firefighters also halted the flames’ progress before they reached Ventura, extinguishing a few localized fires in the Santa Clara River bottom just east of the city.
Instead, the “main action” took place Thursday on the east side of the fire, in the Somis area closer to Moorpark, Cleary said.
“We’re not out of the fight yet,” he said.
The Mountain Fire had burned almost to the town of Moorpark in the east, almost to the city limits of Ventura in the west and north to the Santa Clara River in Santa Paula.
The destruction of houses is taking its toll
Authorities have only just begun to assess the damage, but they have already found 132 buildings destroyed and another 88 damaged, Andy VanSciver, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, said at a news conference Thursday evening. Most of the buildings were single-family homes, and the hardest-hit neighborhood was Camarillo Heights, he said.
These numbers are likely to rise even higher because Ventura County Fire Department damage assessment teams had visited only 298 properties as of Thursday evening and found nearly 3 in 4 of them destroyed or damaged. VanSciver and other officials could not estimate how many properties remain to be checked.
“This is a slow process because we have to make sure the process is safe,” he said, by making sure fire spots are out and natural gas lines and other potential hazards are safe.
Ten people were injured in the fire, Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said. Most of the injuries were smoke inhalation and none were life-threatening, he said.
As of Thursday evening, the fire had burned 20,596 hectares and was 5% contained, meaning firefighters had secured 5% of the fire’s perimeter.
State of emergency declared
On Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Ventura County, freeing up state and federal funding for firefighting operations. Newsom also toured some of the affected neighborhoods Thursday with officials from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
When the fire broke out Wednesday, it was fanned by extremely strong Santa Ana winds from the east — conditions that led the National Weather Service to issue a red flag warning of an “extremely hazardous situation” for the first time since 2020. But on Thursday the wind died down. and the National Weather Service has removed its red flag warning except for high elevations.
Ariel Cohen, the weather service’s chief meteorologist in Oxnard, said the final red flag warning should be lifted at 11 a.m. Friday. Winds should be from the west Friday afternoon, bringing cooler temperatures and higher humidity, making it easier to fight the fire. Higher wind speeds and more red flag warnings are expected again next week, Cohen said.
Too many fire hydrants have been tapped
On Wednesday, the fight was sometimes delayed by power outages and water shortages. At higher elevations in Camarillo Heights and Las Posas Estates, firefighters couldn’t always get enough water pressure, Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said.
One reason for that was the normal demands of firefighting: With hundreds of engines hitting hydrants, “it overwhelmed the system,” said Ian Pritchard, deputy general manager of the Calleguas Municipal Water District.
A water pumping station in the city also burned down, Cleary said, adding to the problem.
Firefighters plan to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and lower winds at night by flying helicopters and dropping fire-retardant chemicals, Gardner said. He said he expects crews “to spend the next four or five days trying to get this under control.”
Heavy patrols are planned in evacuated areas
Meanwhile, authorities are urging people who have been evacuated to stay away from their homes.
Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said his deputies helped people evacuate from more than 400 homes on Wednesday and Thursday, and about 800 more remained vacant after residents were believed to have evacuated on their own. In approximately 250 homes, the residents decided to stay, according to Fryhoff.
Officers will “heavily patrol” all evacuated areas to keep homes safe, he said.
“We will not tolerate any form of looting. Anyone who wants to come here to try to do that will spend a lot more time here than planned,” Fryhoff said.
Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Fund to Support Local Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: ‘No significant growth’ from Mountain Fire, but devastation takes its toll
