Families Race to Save Homes in Farmlands : Santa Paula: Many residents wait until the last minute to flee, but no injuries are reported. Some livestock are killed.

The flames had moved steadily through the canyons north of Santa Paula since early in the morning, cutting a diagonal swath that blackened farmland and forced families from their homes.

From the roof of a hilltop home in Adams Canyon, Donna Pinkerton sized up the blaze and determined that its westward march would not be halted.

“This fire may be here in another 15 or 20 minutes,” said Pinkerton, using a garden hose to squirt water on the roof of her brother-in-law’s home. “You can see it coming right at us.”

Pinkerton was right. As it moved through Fagan Canyon and Wheeler Canyon, the fire blow-torched its way through Adams Canyon as Pinkerton and two others mounted a defense.

They wet down the house and surrounding property. A sprinkler system--installed after a 1985 fire caused extensive property damage--spit water on the roof.

And then it came. Driven by 40 m.p.h. Santa Ana winds, fire surrounded the home. The heat from the blaze drove Pinkerton from the roof. Some palm trees that encircled the perimeter of the house burst into flames.

Air tankers and helicopters swooped in and dropped water on the hottest spots--bright, orange flames dancing about 50 feet away from the house.

An hour later, the blaze had moved across the property without damaging the home.

“It looks like the moon, doesn’t it?” Pinkerton said, viewing the giant black scar where thick shrubbery had been before. “But we’re out of danger now.”

The fire, which started about 2 a.m. Wednesday near Steckel Park on Highway 150, had burned more than 4,000 acres by Wednesday evening. The blaze nearly reached Sulphur Mountain Road on the north and Foothill Road on the south.

On the west, the fire pushed west of Aliso Canyon Road by 4 p.m.

The fire killed livestock and leveled at least three barns. Several homes were threatened, but none were damaged. No injuries were reported.

By early afternoon, Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dick Southwick said resources had already been stretched to the limit.

“We’ve given up fighting the fire offensively,” Southwick said. “We’re protecting structures.”

More than 200 firefighters battled the blaze throughout the day. After receiving warnings from fire officials, dozens of residents voluntarily fled their canyon homes. Those who left were not allowed to return until late afternoon.

William Thein said he was not going to leave his home on Ojai Road, between Santa Paula and Sulphur Mountain roads, until authorities ordered him to go.

By 3:30 p.m., it was recommended that he leave. Fire was a half-mile away.

“I’m just going to wait until they tell me to leave,” Thein said. “I’ve packed up my stuff and I’m ready to get out of here.”

In Aliso Canyon, Connie Goncalez, 19, watched from atop the hood of her family’s tan Monte Carlo on Wednesday

“I’m done packing all the important things,” she said. “I don’t know what to take.”

Up the road, Jorge Morales held his 5-year-old daughter, Anahy, in his arms. Together, they watched the fire burn in the mountains to the north. The family--including Jorge, his wife and daughter, his parents and a brother--live in the canyon.

But firefighters had blocked off their street, so they watched the flames from a friend’s house.

“If you are in a position to lose all your goods, it’s kind of scary,” Jorge Morales said.

Nearby, Aliso Canyon Road resident Julie Yanez, 17, sat in a white pickup and watched her father, Joe Yanez, cutting fire breaks with his bulldozer in a bid to protect his 7,000-acre Smith-Hobson ranch.

The family had moved its 500 head of cattle out of the fire-threatened pastures early Wednesday, some of which collected around Julie Yanez as her father tried to save the three-generation-old ranch.

In Ohara Canyon, ranch manager Mike Mobley tried to save a citrus and avocado ranch owned by Superior Court Judge William Peck. Mobley said he had been using a sprinkler system to keep the crops wet since 10:30 a.m.

“Earlier this morning, it was like being on the other side of hell,” Mobley said. “I feel like I’ve had 50 years worth of cigarettes this morning.”

Wheeler Canyon was one of the hardest hit areas Tuesday.

Frantic residents, many of them arriving with horse trailers, were not allowed into the canyon after 11 a.m. Many tried to push past a roadblock set up at Foothill and Wheeler Canyon roads. Some sneaked past the blockade.

“Are we supposed to let our houses burn down and everything we own go with them?” one irate resident asked.

“If you’re up there, I can’t make you leave,” Sheriff’s Deputy Jerry Peterson explained. “But once you’re down here, I have control over who goes back in.”

Many refused to leave the canyon, despite the fact that the hillsides were erupting in flames.

Jake Blehm owns a 40-acre ranch and Bueana Biosystems, an insect farm with about 10 employees. The farm produces ladybugs, earthworms and other bugs that are beneficial to the environment.

“Fortunately, this time of year we don’t have a lot of production,” said Blehm, standing outside his ranch and viewing the flames.

At the Cummings Ranch, farmhands and others coaxed horses and goats and pigs into a corral where the fire already had burned through. Downed power lines and fire-ringed propane tanks didn’t help the effort.

“That’s all of them,” one ranch hand said as he herded the last of the pigs to safety. “The rest of them are all laying upside down.”

Up the road, an old school bus stop was going up in flames along with two giant-sized tractor tires. At least two cars caught fire, and explosions pierced the air as their gas tanks erupted.

Dan Garmon, a 15-year-old student at Santa Paula High School, lives on an 80-acre ranch in Wheeler Canyon that has stood since 1902. He left school Wednesday to help build fire breaks around the property.

“I didn’t want to see this place go from being something to being nothing,” Garmon said as darkness blanketed the remote canyon. “I didn’t want to see this place get incinerated. This is all we’ve got.”