VENTURA COUNTY FIRESTORM : ‘They Told Me Not to Worry’ : Owner of Ranch Says Destruction of His House Could Have Been Prevented

As he scanned the smoldering hills where his house had stood, Harman Rasnow bitterly pronounced it a disaster that could have been avoided.

The 61-year-old retired engineer, whose family is one of the largest property owners in the area, said he began calling the Ventura County Fire Department about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday when he saw the fire whipping through the dry canyons.

“They told me not to worry, that they had a handle on it,” Rasnow said. “As the fire got closer, I called again to tell them it was looking bad. But the dispatcher wouldn’t put me through to anyone.”

If he had been able to speak to fire officials, Rasnow said, he would have told them about a 20,000-gallon tank of water he had installed next to his house at the south end of Ventu Park fire road, in addition to thousands more gallons in his swimming pool, which he equipped with special attachments for fire hoses.

But firefighters never had the chance to use the tank, Rasnow said, because they did not come to his home until after 4 p.m., when the house was already engulfed in flames and the family had fled.

Fire officials said they had initially focused their energies on the residential neighborhood around Green Meadow Avenue, where encroaching flames had threatened many homes in the afternoon.

“When you have a fire of this magnitude, we’re talking a lot of homes in danger and you don’t get your resources on the scene like that ,” Fire Capt. Norm Plott said, snapping his fingers. “We don’t have enough resources to put fire crews at every house.”

The Rasnow ranch, fire officials said, is in a remote, hard-to-reach area, and firefighters got there as soon as they could.

But Rasnow said the county’s response to the fire was so slow that authorities did not tell the family to leave their home until about 4 p.m., which gave Rasnow’s 65-year-old wife, Eleanor, barely enough time to help her 101-year-old mother out of the house.

“We left only with the clothes on our back,” Eleanor said. “My mother was terrified. Everything is burned to the ground.”

Standing with their children at the bottom of Ventu Park Road, as fire engines screamed by on their way to fight the fire still roaring through the canyons, Harman and Eleanor Rasnow ticked off the things they had lost: a home, a garage, a car, a back-yard chicken coop.

Also damaged in the fire were antennas and satellite dishes used by cable companies to receive satellite feeds.

But the homes of their two children still stood, the Rasnows said.

Tina Rasnow, 35, and Brian, 32, also have houses on the gated, secluded family ranch in the canyons just south of the Ventura Freeway above Los Robles Golf Course and Country Club.

“We called it ‘Euphoria Ranch,’ ” Harman Rasnow said with a touch of irony.

Firefighters who guarded the other two Rasnow houses Tuesday evening said they believed that the dwellings would be safe.

Visibly shaken by the calamity, some members of the Rasnow family said they suspect that the Fire Department’s slow response to their calls could be connected to the family’s longstanding feud with Ventura County and the city of Thousand Oaks.

But Plott said there was absolutely no connection between the Fire Department’s inability to save the Rasnow house and the family’s disputes with county and city officials.

“Around the time the fire began, we had our hands full,” Plott said. “From a personal standpoint, all of us feel bad about losing structures. It’s very disheartening to us as firefighters. Sometimes the fire wins.”

Since the early 1960s, the Rasnows have owned 200 acres in the canyon area called Upper Ventu Park, which borders Thousand Oaks but is in an unincorporated area of Ventura County.

In July, a state commission turned down the family’s request to have the neighborhood taken out of the city of Thousand Oaks’ sphere of influence.

Because the area is in Thousand Oaks’ sphere of influence, it is subject not only to the county’s strict rules on development but also to the city’s policies on new construction.

In early 1992, for example, the Rasnow property came under new regulations restricting grading on steep hillsides that the county had approved at the request of Thousand Oaks city officials.

The Rasnows responded to the new restrictions by filing a $10-million lawsuit against the city and the county, alleging that the agencies’ strict development policies made it impossible to build new houses on the land.