Inland Heat Drives Thousands to Beaches : Weather: High humidity makes unseasonable temperatures seem even hotter. But a forecast promises that cooler days are coming.

Keep your cool, because in a few days it will be.

On Sunday, though, thousands of people flocked to Ventura County beaches to escape searing inland temperatures.

“We’re filled,” yelled Bob Burras, who was directing traffic at Sycamore Cove State Park as yet another exasperated motorist attempted to maneuver off the Pacific Coast Highway into the popular beach area.

“It’s a little hot and sweaty,” said a hatless Burras, 59, wiping his brow under a blistering early-afternoon sun.

“Am I burnt?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m beyond that point.”

The heat should begin breaking in a few days, said Steve Burback, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which does forecasts for The Times.

“The trend is for cooler temperatures over the next few days,” he said. “By next weekend, temperatures will be closer to normal. Now, they’re 10 to 20 degrees above normal.”

He said that Sunday’s 30% to 50% humidity made the warm to hot temperatures feel even more uncomfortable than usual.

Sunday afternoon, streams of cars were still heading toward Ventura County beaches from sizzling inland points such as Steamy--whoops, Simi--Valley, where the mercury climbed to 97 degrees. In Fillmore and Ojai, it was a few degrees warmer.

It was considerably more comfortable at the shore in Ventura, where the air temperature was 79 degrees and the water was 14 degrees cooler.

Lifeguards reported about 10,000 beach-goers at Silver Strand in Oxnard, while about 4,000 people crowded onto Ventura State Beach.

Although county beaches were packed, at least beach-goers could cool off in the waves. That wasn’t the case in parts of Los Angeles County, where a five-mile stretch of beach from Venice to Playa del Rey was closed due to high bacteria counts.

Water contaminated with coliform bacteria had entered the ocean from Ballona Creek, spurring city sanitation officials to close popular Dockweiler, Marina del Rey and Venice beaches on Saturday morning.

In Ventura, cool ocean air made it more tolerable for dozens of athletes who took part in a triathlon in the Pierpont Bay area of Ventura on Sunday morning. The event apparently irritated a few residents whose streets were blocked during the event, Ventura police said.

“We explain to them it only happens once a year,” Officer Graham Jeffery said.

Lifeguards reported three rescues during the 1.2-mile swim portion of the event, one involving a 70-year-old man who complained of chest pains. No one was hurt, they said.

Some people apparently liked it hot Sunday. That was evident at Lake Casitas, where about 1,000 people relaxed on the shores and waterways--and cooked in 100-degree heat.

Swimming in the lake, which is a source of drinking water for part of the county, is forbidden. But on Sunday, the temptation was too great, and several swimmers had to be shooed out of the water by park staff members.

Believe it or not, at least one Oxnard resident drove into the furnace that was Simi Valley on Sunday. When you need votes, you need votes.

Anita Perez Ferguson, 43, the Democratic candidate in the 23rd Congressional District, said she didn’t mind the afternoon heat.

“It’s incredible,” said Debbie Atherton when Ferguson and an aide, Ruth Ann Gonzales, showed up at her house on Hermes Street as an unrelenting sun beat down on them.

Atherton, who is in the insurance business, said she couldn’t believe anyone could be walking the streets in that heat--not even a politician and the reporter accompanying her.

“You guys are nuts,” she said.

Times staff writer John Battelle contributed to this report.