Weary Fire Crews Gain Upper Hand : Improved Weather Helps Stifle Blaze on Carpinteria Outskirts

A frazzled army of firefighters appeared to have won their battle against the giant Ventura County blaze Thursday night as cooler weather and lighter winds took much of the life out of flames that had marched from Ojai to the outskirts of Carpinteria on the coast.

Although fresh crews were being flown in from as far away as Michigan and Arkansas on the chance that the weather could still betray the 2,700 men already on the lines, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman said at early evening that the winds were not expected to pick up again during the night.

The sprawling fire was still active around Jameson Lake, about five miles north of Carpinteria, but firefighters had been able to get a line on its southern flank from Ojai and Lake Casitas. The fire was about 40% contained.

It had sprung up Monday, apparently the result of arson in the Wheeler Springs area, and had been turned back at the northern edge of Ojai, only to take off toward Santa Barbara County and grow to nearly 60,000 acres.

Residents Evacuated

The latest evacuations occurred early Thursday morning, when residents of about 100 homes in the Carpinteria area left at the urging of fire officials as flames roared through tall brush on what seemed at the time to be a sweep to the ocean.

As a precaution, the California Highway Patrol closed Gibraltar Road, which leads from Santa Barbara to the Gibraltar Reservoir just west of Jameson Lake in the Santa Ynez Mountains.

“If it was real hot today,” Carpinteria Fire Marshal Gerald Mann said Thursday afternoon, “with any kind of down-canyon wind the fire would have gone to hell. But because it was a fairly calm, cool day, the fire just fizzled around.”

Humidity Stays Low

Although the winds were reaching no more than 6 m.p.h. to 15 m.p.h. Thursday afternoon, the relative humidity reading remained low--down to 14% at one point during the day. Temperatures were in the 90s--a relief, by comparison to temperatures of over 100 earlier in the week.

Resources had been stretched so thin by the Ventura County fire as well as other blazes throughout Southern California that U.S. Forest Service officials made a radio-television appeal Thursday afternoon for civilian trucks and vans to haul supplies to the men on the fire lines.

Vehicle owners were offered $7 an hour and up to 35 cents a mile.

The response was so great that the offer was canceled about two hours after it was broadcast. It brought what spokesman Steve Beck said was a “traffic jam” of trucks and vans headed for the Ojai Ranger Station.

“It was just overwhelming,” Beck said. “We really appreciate what people did.”

The fire was near seven major watershed drainage areas, Forest Service Incident Cmdr. Bill Bowman said at an afternoon press briefing. He called those areas “some of the most sensitive in the state” and declared, “Our strategy now is not to give up any more than we have to.”

Mann said the area along the Ventura-Santa Barbara County line where the blaze flared up early Thursday had not had a major fire for 30 years. The result was that the brush was 30 feet high.

“The brush in those canyons is like trees,” Mann said. “It goes up extremely fast.”

Nearly a dozen homes, barns and other structures had been destroyed in the Ojai area during the last three days and Ventura County officials were convinced that a series of fires was deliberately set.

Two Fires Controlled

One of them was a 350-acre blaze that erupted at Black Mountain Wednesday afternoon and a smaller one that broke out near Santa Paula the same day. Both were controlled by Thursday morning.

Improving weather conditions enabled firefighters to make headway against several other major Southland fires.

They had 60% containment of the 25,000-acre Las Pilitas fire that had been burning near Santa Margarita Lake in San Luis Obispo County since Monday, 90% containment of the 21,000-acre Cabazon fire near Palm Springs and 95% control of the 8,425-acre De Luz Canyon fire that was touched off Tuesday by exploding ammunition at Camp Pendleton.

Gain Partial Control

They had partially controlled a 1,200-acre blaze near Yucca Valley in San Bernardino County and a 750-acre fire that had been burning in the Santa Ana Canyon since Tuesday when a small plane crashed into a truck on a freeway.

A brush fire of undetermined origin broke out Thursday afternoon on land owned by TRW Inc. north of San Clemente, burning about 35 acres before being controlled by San Clemente, Orange County and Camp Pendleton firefighters. Officials were concerned that explosives tested on the grounds for Ford Aerospace & Communications Corp. might be exposed to the fire, but a TRW spokesman said there was no danger.

In Northern California, a 1,600-acre blaze in Yosemite National Park was 75% contained and the 1,200-acre Arroyo Seco fire in Monterey County was 60% contained. Another Monterey County fire, which burned 2,800 acres 15 miles northeast of San Miguel, was contained.

Fires Throughout West

As for fires in nearby states:

- An 8,200-acre blaze was controlled in southern Arizona near the Mexican border.

- An 1,800-acre fire continued to burn in Idaho’s Challis National Forest. Officials believe that it was set by an arsonist.

- In Montana, two fires burned about 2,000 acres in remote areas.

Smaller fires were burning in Washington and Oregon.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, identification was not expected before today of the woman whose body was found in a bathtub among the charred ruins of a house in the Baldwin Hills.

She was believed to be Marie Gladden, 62, who was the only resident of that fire-stricken neighborhood still unaccounted for Thursday evening. Firefighters searching the blackened rubble of the 48 homes destroyed when flames roared up a brushy hillside on Tuesday discovered the body, fully clothed, late Wednesday afternoon.

Firefighter’s Mother

Mrs. Gladden is the mother of Los Angeles city firefighter Robert Gladden.

She lived alone at 4226 Don Carlos Drive in the worst-hit part of the fire area and was found fully clothed in the bathtub of a house next door. Police theorized that she ran from her own home when it burst into flames and took refuge at 4214 Don Carlos--only to be trapped when the flames spread there.

Discovery of the body brought to three the number of people killed by the roaring flames, which police and fire officials said were the result of arson.

The American Red Cross said those wishing to aid victims of the fiery disaster may send checks to the American Red Cross, marked for the Baldwin Hills Fire, at 2700 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 90057.

A spokeswoman said the money will be distributed to individuals for immediate necessities.