Brush Fire Blackens 130 Acres Near Santa Paula : Containment: Sparks from an insulator on an electric power line cause the year’s largest blaze. Two houses are briefly threatened.

The year’s largest brush fire blackened 130 acres northeast of Santa Paula, charred an avocado orchard and threatened two houses as it swept across steep hills and canyons on Friday.

Firefighters aided by bulldozers, helicopters and airplanes contained the blaze at 4:27 p.m., four hours after it was set by sparks from an insulator on a 66,000-volt electric power line.

Max Rudolph, 82, who owns the 2,500-acre citrus ranch where the fire began, said firefighters arrived so quickly and in such force that he never feared for his son’s house a few hundred yards below the fire line.

“A fire like this does more good than harm,” Rudolph said, standing at the bottom of the smoking hill watching the flames. The area hadn’t burned in nearly 20 years, and the fire clears out the brush, he said.

The efforts of 250 firefighters from Ventura and Los Angeles counties were hindered by rugged terrain that forced crews to hike steep hills to reach the fire line. High-voltage electric towers that march across the hills prevented airplanes and helicopters from swooping near the ground to drop fire retardant, reducing its effect on the flames that consumed trees and brush.

Firefighters on the ground battled muddy conditions from a ruptured water line and had to avoid barbed wire and cacti.

“We also heard there was a danger of electrical wires being down, and putting water on electrical wires is the last thing you want to do,” firefighter Sam Villavicencio said.

Winds from the west gusted up to 25 m.p.h. Friday afternoon, pushing the flames across a bulldozer line and up a canyon at the fire’s northeast end.

“If it gets away from us, there is nothing back there but the condors and I-5,” said James Smith, assistant chief with the Ventura County Fire Department, referring to the endangered California condors that were placed Thursday in an enclosure in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary about 10 miles to the north.

Before Friday’s fire, only 126 acres had burned in Ventura County this year, marking one of the area’s least destructive fire seasons. Last year, brush fires fanned by hot, dry Santa Ana winds consumed 2,761 acres.

Smith estimated that flames leaped 40 feet in the air on the south-facing hillside straddling Orcutt Canyon Road where the fire began. By 6 p.m., the hills were just smoldering.

The fire is not expected to be declared out until about noon today. About 75 firefighters were expected to stay at the fire line Friday night.

No complete damage estimate was available late Friday, but officials said 12 avocado trees had sustained at least $12,000 in damage. No injuries were reported.

Fire danger was expected to diminish today as winds from the west blow moisture in from the ocean. Also, a storm front that moved in over the area was forecast to bring a chance of thundershowers Friday night, said Scott Quirarte, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

“We’re going to cool out and get wet,” Quirarte said. “It’s not going to flare back up because of the moisture.”

The lack of the Santa Ana conditions Friday helped firefighters, Capt. Kerry Ellison said.

“But we won’t be out of the woods until we get some major rains,” Ellison said.

The two houses that were briefly threatened were at the north end of Boosey Road. It was the decision by Chief Dale Miller to call for extra crews to the fire’s northeast end that contained the fire in that area, said Terry Raley, who coordinated the firefighting operation.

Times correspondent Peggy Y. Lee contributed to this story.