The massive fire in Southern California’s Ventura County continues to burn more than 14,000 acres as of Thursday morning, with no containment in place and strong winds still sweeping through the area.
Several people were injured and several houses were set on fire after the mountain fire broke out on Wednesday morning. The weather has not helped firefighting efforts as Santa Ana wind gusts in the 30s will persist in the area throughout the morning and afternoon.
According to the Ventura County Fire Department, it started around 8:50 a.m. near the 7900 block of Balcom Canyon Road and Bradley Road on South Mountain in the Moorpark area. Within an hour the fire had grown from 25 to 1,000 hectares.
The Mountain Fire raged through the night, burning more than 14,100 hectares, while still maintaining 0% containment. The Federal Emergency Agency has released funds to help pay fire brigade resources.
The approximately 800 firefighters focused on lifesaving efforts as the wildfire raged through neighborhoods in Camarillo, Moorpark and Somis.
“Our first priority here at Ventura County Fire in responding to this incident is the safety of lives,” said Firefighter Andrew Dowd. “And we urge all residents in the affected areas to ensure they follow evacuation orders. That is our first priority.”
According to fire officials, several people suffered injuries that required hospitalization. None of the victims’ conditions were immediately known.
Around 11 a.m. Wednesday, VCFD crews reported that the flames had jumped SR-118 and were moving into the Camarillo area and entering the Camarillo Heights area.
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Aerial footage showed four different homes on fire in a neighborhood near Cabrillo Way and Highland Drive in Camarillo on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the fire started.
San Bernardino County Fire Department crews reported that a strike team was dispatched to the area to assist VCFD with the incident.
Evacuation orders
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office issued evacuation warnings and orders for many residents of Camarillo, Somis and residents near the Santa Clara River.
A real-time map of evacuation orders can be found here.
Authorities set up an evacuation center in Padre Serra Parish, located at 5205 Upland Road in Camarillo.
Homeowners with large pets were advised to drop off their animals at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, located at 10 E. Harbor Boulevard. Small pets can be taken to the Ventura County Animal Services center at the Camarillo Airport, located at 600 Aviation Drive.
Hard road closures were implemented at SR-118 at Tierra Rejada and Wells Road, as well as at Balcom Canyon Road near Stockton and Las Posas near Lewis, VCFD said. They also closed N. Lewis Road at noon.
Drivers traveling on SR-118 and SR-23 were advised to remain vigilant and watch for emergency vehicles responding to the fire.
“The biggest challenge we have … is horses coming on the roads,” said an Oxnard Fire Department captain. “We had a lot of people who didn’t evacuate early… we had a lot of traffic on our road.”
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School closures
The Mountain Fire has forced more than a dozen schools and districts to close as crews try to douse the flames. Pleasant Valley School District officials have evacuated the Camarillo Heights Elementary School campus “due to the wind event and associated fires in surrounding communities.” A bus took students who were not picked up to Monte Vista Middle School.
More than a dozen schools and districts announced closures for the rest of the week.
Strong winds fan flames
The fire comes amid heavy winds lashing much of Southern California, prompting the fire National Weather Service officials will issue red flag warnings. In this specific case, they have issued a ‘Particularly dangerous situation’ warning due to the threat posed by ‘a persistent or threatening firefighting pattern’.
Meteorologists monitored some wind gusts that reached more than 60 miles per hour as the fire burned. Winds have subsided Thursday, with gusts in the area expected to be around 30 miles per hour until around noon, when winds are expected to decrease.
Strong winds grounded fixed-wing firefighting aircraft, posing another hurdle to full containment, according to VCFD.
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“The fire is burning in what we call an intermix area, a mixture of wilderness and a lot of agriculture,” VCFD Capt. Anthony McHale said while speaking to KCAL. “There are a number of homes, ranches and smaller neighborhoods in the intermix area and that poses a huge challenge for locals.”
He said wind-driven fires are one of the most dangerous situations firefighters face because of the constantly evolving flames, smoke and embers.
“That can pose challenges, and of course in some cases, depending on wind dynamics, those embers can be carried long distances, starting fires in sensitive fuel beds and structures that may be in the area,” McHale said .
According to Dr. John Fisher of Chapman University credited the combination of topography, wind conditions and dry shrubland with contributing to the rapid spread.
“That fire will spread faster just because the fire is moving upward,” said Fisher, the climate scientist. “So we have these conditions of the topography, the wind and the plants – and also being close to roads and human properties – all coming together to make this a lot worse than it could have been if the wind had been like that.” calm, the vegetation was wet.”
While the cause is still under investigation. Fisher speculates that it may have been man-made.
“It doesn’t even have to be really targeted. It could be a cigarette butt. It could be a piece of metal on a car that makes something spark,” Fisher said.
He also talked about why Southern California has been hit so hard by wildfires this season.
“We’re seeing a lot more wildfires for a lot of reasons,” Fisher said. “The general angle of climate change is that things are getting hotter and drier, but also remember that we have just had a very wet winter, also related to climate change. So this wet winter has caused a lot of plants and a lot of plants have grown.” vegetation that dried out in the summer.”
In addition to the increased amount of fuel, he says people play a big role.
“We also have more and more people moving into these areas – more roads, more opportunities for sparks, and as these fires grow, more threats to life and property,” Fisher said.
At the same time another A forest fire raged in Malibuwhich had already destroyed a house and damaged another when it set fire to 50 hectares of brush.
Residents respond
With the dynamic situation, where hundreds of hectares of vegetation are rapidly decimated in just a few hours, residents were forced to take action to evacuate their homes.
“We’ve never seen anything like this. Never thought something like this would happen to us,” said Ken Levin, who lives in a house next to Spanish Hills. ‘But the fire brigade is there, they are bulldozing firebreaks at the back of our property and the wind is turning south. So we feel good about where we are. … I think we’ll be fine. Thank you God for our firefighters who are here to help us when we need it.”
Levin, whose wife had already been evacuated by the time he spoke to KCAL News’ Jeff Nguyen, was on his way out when he saw the flames begin to rip across the hill.
“Oh my God, my house is in danger,” he said, gesturing toward his house. “I’m alive. My wife is alive. We have everything we need, this can be replaced.”
He said that in all the years he has lived in the area, he has “never experienced winds like this.”
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Around 1 p.m., California Governor Gavin Newsom posted on X that state officials were heading to the fire because of the “serious threat” posed to Camarillo Heights. He also noted that Cal Fire officials and California Office of Emergency Services officials corresponded to provide residents with necessary support.
Shocking video footage from the scene showed the moments Ventura County Sheriff’s Department officers burst into a senior living facility, pulling several wheelchair-bound residents to safety with massive clouds of smoke billowing in the area.
Current disruptions in place
Due to the all day Santa Ana wind event, SoCal Edison started cutting off the power supply for some customers due to the increased fire risk.
As of 1 p.m., more than 23,300 SCE customers living in Ventura County were affected by the public safety power shutoffs, a situation that will continue to evolve as the fire continues to burn.
“They will be active during the wind event and once we see wind conditions improving, we will start working to re-energize customers,” said Gabriela Ornelas, a public information officer for SCE.
With forecasts predicting winds to continue throughout the evening and into Thursday, Ornelas said power could return sporadically to customers.
“It is possible that customers may get power back if there is no wind in certain areas or communities,” she said. “That would be a quick example in this wind event.”
Ornelas said while outages are a known inconvenience, they are being done with the public’s safety in mind.
“Public safety closures are a last resort that we are implementing to ensure the safety of the public,” she said.
Power outages also affected Monte Vista and Las Posas schools, while Santa Rosa Technology Magnet School was on a watch list for another outage.
Chaparral Middle School and Campus Canyon College Prep Academy are closed after the fire caused a power outage. No students were in danger.
