Brush Fire Bearing Down on Houses : Ojai Valley: A power pole short-circuit set off the blaze, which has burned more than 200 acres near pricey neighborhoods.

Firefighters Tuesday night battled Ventura County’s third major brush fire in four days as it raced across drought-parched terrain, threatening neighborhoods of high-priced houses in the upper Ojai Valley.

Officials said only one minor injury had been reported. A firefighter from the U.S. Forest Service sprained his ankle and was evacuated by ambulance to Ojai Valley Community Hospital.

The fire started at 5:06 p.m. when a 220-volt power pole short-circuited and sent a shower of sparks into brush at the north end of Foothill Road. An easterly wind scattered the sparks, igniting other areas, said Sandi Wells, spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

The brush fire had charred about 215 acres by 9:30 p.m.

Flames licked trees and encroached within 10 feet of some houses. But none of the houses had been damaged by the fire. Wells said the houses had been spared because most of the residents had cleared weeds and brush from around them in accordance with county law.

Some residents said the fire reminded them of a brush fire five years ago that forced them to evacuate.

“It’s awful,” said Ann Anderson, who has owned her house on Foothill Road for a decade. “You can’t understand unless you’ve been in it. You feel so helpless.”

A constant rain of ash fell on some neighborhoods close to the fire and brown smoke smudged the sky in the canyons over Ojai.

About 30 engines and 293 firefighters from the Ventura County Fire Department and the U.S. Forest Service worked to extinguish the blaze.

Two bulldozers cut brush in a circle around the area in an attempt to stop the fire, said Denise Beaumont of the county fire department. Three helicopters and three airplanes ferried between nearby water sources--including Lake Casitas--and the fire line, bombing the flames with thousands of gallons of water and bright pink fire retardant.

Fire officials did not force an evacuation, but many residents watered their roofs, packed their cars with valuables and left the area.

Others stayed with their houses as acrid smoke filled the rooms and the blaze neared their doorsteps.

“We’ve got a fire in our back yard,” said Ruth Kille, 59, who has lived in her Foothill Road house for 30 years. “It’s too close.”

She said that she and her husband had been forced to evacuate the house three times during the fire that ravaged the area in July, 1985.

That fire, which took two weeks and cost $8.6 million to put out, destroyed 12 houses and damaged seven more, the Forest Service said. The 119,000-acre blaze was started by arsonists in Wheeler Gorge, authorities said.

Conditions on Tuesday--because of dry conditions and a hot spell that had lasted several days--were similar to those that fed the 1985 fire, said Gordon Hildreth, a fire engineer with county Fire Department.

In addition, Hildreth said, firefighters were worried about “sundowners”--hot, swift winds created by heat from the sun, which can sometimes fan a fire. In 1985, the sun went down and flames shot up and again threatened houses.

A sundowner fanned the fire Tuesday about 8:30 p.m., whipping flames out of areas that had only been smoldering moments before. Two standing tornadoes, a recurring natural phenomenon in that section of the Ojai Valley, further contributed to the fire, Hildreth said.

Officials said they were unsure how many crews would stay through the night. But helicopters and aircraft crews stopped working at sundown because the terrain was made it too dangerous for them to fly at night.

“It looks like they’ve almost got it, but they’ve almost had it for two hours now,” area resident Arthur Throckmorton said as he watched firefighters.

Meanwhile, Michelle Pennington and some friends helped gather paintings and personal papers from her parents’ house. Pennington said she came to remove valuables from the house to safety because her parents, Frank and Mitzi Hajduk, were out of town on a weeklong vacation to Las Vegas when the fire started.

Pennington said she called her parents: “My dad said, ‘Get my briefcase and my golf clubs and my pictures,’ and my mom was pretty calm. They wanted to know how close it was.”

The base of blaze was no more than 500 feet from the luxurious house.

James West, who said he is a seventh-generation Ojai resident, lamented the presence of several emergency water tanks in the hills, which have been empty for 20 years. He also pointed out the Matilija Canyon dam, five miles away, which had held a ready water supply until it breached several years ago.

Mark Olson, area manager for Southern California Edison Co., said 75 customers lost power because of burned power poles. He said crews were working through the night to repair the problems.

Another fire that started on Monday and burned about 600 acres on Santa Cruz Island was nearly extinguished by late Tuesday, said Carol Spears, a spokeswoman for Channel Islands National Park.

Two firefighters planned to remain on the 62,000-acre island, 20 miles off Ventura coast, through today to guard against flare-ups, Spears said.

She said the fire was still smoldering in some areas. The fire began about 12:40 a.m. Monday on the northeast side of the island near China Harbor.

Another 18 firefighters were scheduled to leave the island Tuesday night, Spears said. “Everything looks real good right now,” Spears said.

The fire did not injure any of the 35 people on the island, 90% of which is owned by the Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental group.

The blaze also did not damage the handful of structures on the island or harm the eight species of plants found nowhere else in the world, Spears said.

Coast Guard officials are continuing to investigate whether the fire was caused by one of their flares used during the rescue of three people stranded on an island beach early Monday. Two flares were sent up by the Coast Gaurd, and one was launched by people on the island in an attempt to illuminate the area during the night rescue, Chief Petty Officer Mark Kennedy said.

Apparently, one of the flares landed on a bluff overlooking China Harbor and ignited the grass, Spears said.

In a separate fire, officials from the Ventura County Fire Department said no hot spots remained from the 283-acre brush fire east of Fillmore, which began about 1 p.m. Saturday and was extinguished by 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Times staff writers Kirsten Lee Swartz and Thia Bell contributed to this story.