VENTURA : House Burned to Train Firefighters

Days after two natural fires scorched thousands of acres north of Ojai and in Oakland, 32 Ventura county and city firefighters trained by extinguishing five man-made fires.

Onlookers’ cars lined both sides of Olivas Park Drive in Ventura on Wednesday to watch flames billow out of a dilapidated turn-of-the-century house. Firefighters would allow this fire, the fifth of the day, to finish off the house.

“Nobody is the loser in this one,” said Tom McLaughlin of Westlake, one of the property’s four owners.

This way, McLaughlin said, firefighters can fight fires while the owners are rid of a structure in which people could injure themselves. It was not economically feasible to bring it up to code, he added.

“This is the best practice we can get out here,” said county fire spokesman Michael Lindbery, who was covered with a gray film from the smoke. Sitting in the classroom for an entire day can’t teach a firefighter what he can learn in 10 minutes in the heat of one of these fires, he said.

Firefighters seemed relaxed as they concentrated water on the walnut, apricot and crab apple trees next to the house. The ranch owners had asked that the trees be salvaged if possible.

By the end of the seven-hour training session, the remnants of the white wooden single-family house had been bulldozed, leaving little for the demolition dump.

Another single-family house of the same vintage that stands about 50 feet away will be ignited Oct. 31, making it the fourth to be burned to the ground this year in fires sponsored by the county training task force.