Residents Wet Roofs and Prepare to Flee Flames

The planes and helicopters buzzing over Mupu Elementary School just north of Santa Paula on Tuesday provided teacher Lois Brannon a lesson for her third- and fourth-graders on how wildfires are fought.

At the Ayers Pumpkin Patch west of town, about 100 schoolchildren went on hayrides and picked pumpkins while walls of smoke from the South Mountain and Mupu fires billowed along the near horizons.

In the Steckel Park campground near Mupu School, three missionaries housed in a tent took two hours to evacuate the path of a fire, which burned to within a few hundred yards of their campsites.

Many Santa Paula residents living in the vicinity of Tuesday’s brush fires jumped to the defense of their homes, using garden hoses to douse roofs and landscaping and preparing to clear their homes of valuables.

“I’ve got my fire equipment ready, and anyone who doesn’t isn’t playing with a full deck,” said Roger Schmitz, a retired Los Angeles firefighter who prepared to defend his home with water from a 1,000-gallon stationary tank and a 250-gallon mobile tank.

“I didn’t even know about any fire until I woke up this morning,” said Phil Hinks, 66, whose motor home was parked less than a mile from the South Mountain fire that broke out at 10:55 p.m. Monday.

Although his home is on the extreme south side of Fagen Canyon, the site of one of the two fires, retired Santa Paula Police Chief Ray Tull said he was not terribly concerned Tuesday afternoon.

“People here are prepared for the dry season,” said Wayne Faley, owner of Valley Hardware on Main Street in Santa Paula. “Most of them up on South Mountain cleared their homes long ago.”

Patricia Morehart, who lives on Mupu Road, said she spotted what she believes were the first flames from the brush fire in her area along California 150 when she drove her son to school at 8:20 a.m.

As she drove back to her home in Santa Paula Canyon, the flames were spreading quickly up the hillsides, and she immediately wet down her roof with sprinklers and prepared her family for possible evacuation, she said.

David Eaton, caretaker of an aviary at Steckel Park, hosed down the roof of a birdhouse while its 200 occupants went into hysterics.

“They know what’s happening,” Eaton said.

Eaton said fire officials assured him that the birds would not have to be evacuated. Across the parking lot at the newly established command post, a helicopter’s landing was delayed in deference to the aviary residents.

“Where can we set this thing down where it won’t scare the hell out of these birds?” Battalion Chief Dale Miller of the Ventura County Fire Department said.

Like many residents, Chula Casas, 33, took the day off from her bank teller’s job to watch over the Stonegate Road home that she and her husband purchased last year.

“The fire was just up on that ridge,” Chula said, pointing to a hilltop about half a mile away. “We just sat out here all day washing down our roof and watching the neighbors’ homes. My house is more important than my job.”

Happy and Chuck Davis were awakened by the smell of smoke at their five-acre hillside ranch about 11:30 p.m. Monday night and looked out to see flames approaching their driveway.

“There were terrible winds, terrible smoke,” said Happy Davis, who said the family’s combined ranch and construction business is about two miles from the nearest home. “Embers were all over the house and the yard. It burned all the way up to our driveway.”

Davis said she began watering the roof with a hose while her husband used a tractor to make a firebreak around the house. County firefighters arrived about midnight and extinguished the blaze, she said.

At the one-room Little Red School east of Santa Paula, the South Mountain fire was visible from the classroom, teacher Mary Campbell said.

“We’ve been watching it all day,” Campbell said. “The kids are pretty excited--we can see it out the window.”

Campbell said an orchard separated the school from the fire, and the wind blew the flames in the opposite direction, so the blaze was never a threat to the building.

Mupu School, within a mile of one fire, was without phone service much of the day, though a parent brought a cellular phone from home in case of an emergency, Lois Brannon said.

Brannon decided to use the nearby fire as a learning experience for her third- and fourth-grade students, who drew pictures of smoke and flames in an afternoon art class and discussed how the fire was being fought.

At the end of the day, teachers walked students about half a mile past a police roadblock. At that point, they were greeted by parents who took them home.