Fire Blackens 320 Acres of Hillside : Ventura: No houses are damaged in a blaze that began Tuesday afternoon and was put out within a few hours amid light winds.

A fast-moving brush fire raced across the hillsides overlooking Ventura on Tuesday afternoon, consuming 320 acres before firefighters controlled the blaze.

At its height, the fire shot flames 75 feet into the air along the foothill ridgeline and filled the sky with smoke. The blaze came within half a mile of nearby houses, but none was damaged, officials said, and there were no reports of injuries.

The fire, which began about 2:50 p.m. at the north end of Arroyo Verde Park on Foothill Drive, was held to the brush-covered hillside and canyon north of Foothill Drive and west of Victoria Avenue, officials said.

More than 100 firefighters from Ventura city and county fire departments along with 15 engines and two water-carrying helicopters extinguished the blaze by 7 p.m.

As children scampered up hillsides for a better look at the blaze, area residents headed home from the office early to protect residences or prepare to leave them behind.

“We started loading up the truck, looking for the cats,” said Frank Meronk, an ophthalmologist who lives on Topa Topa Drive.

“You’ve got to gather up the family albums,” said Richard Wittenberg, county administrative officer and an area resident who headed home when he saw smoke near his house.

Firefighters were helped by a light ocean breeze that brought moisture and cooled the area, blowing flames away from houses and into the 6-foot-high chaparral of Sexton Canyon, Ventura Fire Capt. Barry Simmons said. The canyon’s chaparral was burned off by the county only three years ago, preventing the brush from becoming dense fuel for a fire, he said.

“Everything was in our favor,” Simmons said. “The winds were light and they headed in a direction where we could put engines on Sexton Canyon Road and make a stand.”

Because there were no other major fires in the area, both fire agencies responded quickly, he said.

Simmons said officials are still investigating the cause of the fire but that it could not have been caused by careless picnickers using the park’s barbecue pits. He also said it is unlikely that Tuesday’s fire was the work of an arsonist who has plagued Ventura County since Oct. 8, when the first of at least four fires was deliberately set.

“A professional would have waited for a more dangerous situation than today,” Simmons said. “This one could easily have been set by children after school.”

Meanwhile, county arson investigators continue to work on leads that may help them discover who set three fires on Oct. 8 and 9 that consumed 2,200 acres in the Santa Paula and Fillmore areas. A fourth fire was set Sunday east of Santa Paula, but firefighters, kept on standby in the area because of predominant east winds, held that fire to less than half an acre.

“We’ll staff up again if the winds change,” said Charles (Bob) Crim, deputy chief of operations for the county Fire Department.

Hot and dry Santa Ana winds that blow out of the east were expected to pick up slightly today, but they should not exceed about 10 m.p.h., said meteorologist Phil Moyal at the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District. Temperatures were also expected to rise slightly today to the mid-70s along the coast and well into the 90s in the inland valleys, Moyal said.

Humidity, a critical factor in the spread of brush fires, remained very low along the coast and inland as the county struggles through a fourth year of drought, Moyal said.

“You could tell that brush was dry,” Moyal said of the Ventura fire. “It just took off.”

Firefighters divided into teams to battle the fire and protect houses, Simmons said. One group of engines lined up in front of residences on Topa Topa Drive in case the fire turned south toward them. Another team stationed itself along Sexton Canyon Road above the fire.

Once the fire reached the top of Sexton Canyon, it slowed as it moved along the downhill slope of the canyon, Simmons said. A fire heading downhill burns much cooler than an uphill blaze because hot air rising from the flames cannot preheat the fuel, Simmons said.

Also contributing to the firefighting effort was the fact that the brush was burning down the shadow-covered eastern slope of the canyon instead of the sunbaked western slope, Simmons said.

The fire forced police to close Foothill Drive from Victoria Avenue to Day Road, but police allowed residents to get through.

Jim Tucker, who lives on Skyline Drive, rushed home from his job as a teacher at Mar Vista Continuation School in Oxnard when he saw dark smoke pouring from the hills behind his house. He and his next-door neighbor Frank Marasco praised the police for waving residents through without delay.

“The police have just been amazing,” Marasco said.

Times staff writer Gary Gorman and Kirsten Lee Swartz contributed to this report.