$1 Million Is Spent to Fight 3 Brush Fires : Expense: Two of the three blazes were declared to be out by late Thursday. The third fire is expected to be extinguished by tonight.

As crews mopped up the last of three brush fires that threatened the towns of Santa Paula and Fillmore this week, the county’s top fire official estimated Thursday that the cost of containing the blazes will exceed $1 million.

A force that at one point totaled almost 1,000 men and women from agencies throughout the state battled the fires for four days, County Fire Chief George Lund said.

“Overtime for firefighters and aircraft are very expensive, but there is no substitute for what they can do,” he said.

Lund said most of the cost of fighting the fires will be picked up by the California Department of Forestry, but the county’s cost will exceed $100,000.

Hundreds of oak trees were scorched and several citrus and avocado orchards were harmed by smoke or fire, but no damage estimates were available on the fires that burned nearly 2,200 acres of brush and trees.

Five firefighters suffered minor injuries, officials said.

Of the massive force of firefighters that battled the blazes at their peak, only 85 people from the Ventura County Fire Department, the California Youth Authority and the California Department of Forestry remained by late Thursday.

The 657-acre South Mountain fire southeast of Santa Paula was declared out at 8 a.m. Thursday and the 750-acre Shiells Canyon blaze south of Fillmore was out by 6 p.m. Thursday. But the Mupu fire northeast of Santa Paula, which burned 750 acres, was not expected to be completely out until 6 p.m. today, Battalion Chief James Spikerman said.

“There are still more smoldering oak trees at the top of the canyon,” Spikerman said. “We declare it out when there are no more hot spots.”

Spikerman said fires in smoldering trees are not left to die out naturally because a gust of wind could send sparks flying and ignite new fires.

Meanwhile, investigators said Thursday that they are waiting for leads from people who may have noticed strange cars in the areas where the fires were set. “We don’t have any leads right now,” arson investigator Peter Cronk said. “We’re stuck. It’s very frustrating.”

Richard Simon, deputy district attorney in charge of the arson unit, said a convicted arsonist who lit a brush fire near Moorpark in August had failed to appear for his sentencing on Monday.

“He could be a suspect,” Simon said. But Cronk said Fillmore and Santa Paula were “out of his area,” and it was unknown whether the man even owned a car to take him to the remote areas where the fires were set.

Smoke had cleared from Santa Paula and Fillmore skies by Thursday, but air pollution levels were high over the area and much of the rest of the county, Air Pollution Control District officials said.

The east Santa Ana winds that fanned the fires also blew tiny particles of ash, along with the normal urban pollutants from car exhausts and other sources, out to sea.

But as the winds died, the offshore breeze picked up and blew the mass back over land, causing higher than normal ozone pollution along the coast and pollution approaching unhealthy levels in Simi Valley and Piru, said Kent Field, district meteorologist.

“Our monitors show we don’t have a lot of oxides of nitrogen, which usually makes up much of the brown stuff you see,” Field said. “So this is probably very fine particulates from the fire.”