LOS PADRES FOREST : Rains Bring End to Lengthy Fire Season

Recent rains have finally brought an end to the official fire season in Los Padres National Forest, officials said.

All fire restrictions in the forest will be lifted at midnight tonight, Forest Supervisor Art Carroll said.

Campers and other forest visitors will be allowed to build wood campfires outside developed campgrounds. And smokers can light up outside their vehicles or developed recreation areas without fear of being cited.

“We still need to ask people to be careful,” Ojai District Ranger Ron Bassett said. “We’ll need a lot more appreciable rainfall to make it a whole lot safer.”

Fire season normally ends in October or November for Los Padres National Forest, which covers 2 million acres from Ventura County to the Big Sur coast, Forest Service spokeswoman Juanita Freel said. The lack of rain extended it this year.

Despite the fourth consecutive year of one of the worst droughts for this area, forest officials said they encountered fewer fires in 1990 than expected.

“We were very fortunate in the amount of fires but very unfortunate in the catastrophic losses of property in the Paint fire,” Freel said.

The devastating fire that started near Painted Cave in Santa Barbara last June destroyed more than 500 houses and burned 1,000 acres of private and forest land.

The Ojai Ranger District, which covers 319,000 acres mostly in Ventura County, had six fires last year that burned a total of about 700 acres, Bassett said.

A 580-acre blaze fanned by strong winds that swept the Ojai foothills was the largest forest fire in the county, he said. It started June 26, the day before the Paint fire.

Full fire statistics will not be available until Monday, officials said.