Damage Climbs as Fires Intensify : Destruction: Totals rise to 35 homes, 60,000 acres. New fronts threaten Thousand Oaks, Santa Paula. Winds dash hopes for quick end to blazes.

Ventura County struggled through its worst day of smoke and flame Thursday as damage tolls mounted and new fire fronts threatened Thousand Oaks and Santa Paula--a day that saw early morning hopes for a quick end to the fires destroyed by afternoon winds that whipped the blazes in new directions.

On Wednesday, only nine houses and 30,000 acres had been destroyed. By Thursday afternoon, those totals had climbed to 35 houses, 23 outbuildings, seven ridge-top telecommunications sites and nearly 60,000 acres of brush and pasture.

“This is the first time in this department that we have even conceived of losing this number of structures,” said Alan Campbell, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

Fresh reinforcements and an early morning break in fierce Santa Ana winds brought relief to thousands of overworked firefighters. But afternoon ocean winds shoved the fires in the east county back toward the exclusive neighborhoods of Lake Sherwood Ranch and Westlake Village.

In the west county, flames near Santa Paula leaped across firebreaks in the late afternoon, threatening ranches there and forcing bulldozer crews to fall back at dusk and start cutting a new 18-mile firebreak farther west.

By Thursday morning, fire crews had contained about 25% of the 2-day-old Thousand Oaks fire, fending it off near Camarillo State Hospital with firebreaks and bulldozers, and near the Los Angeles County line with water dropped by helicopters.

Then the shift of hot seaward winds to humid ocean breezes pushed the flames back through dense, old brush and into Carlisle and Little Sycamore canyons.

A few hours later, the Thousand Oaks fire reached north around the crest of Boney Mountain, sank its talons into brush that had not burned since 1956 and began burning back toward homes that earlier looked safe.

By 4 p.m., Ventura County sheriff’s deputies were hurriedly evacuating the exclusive waterfront community of Lake Sherwood and dense subdivisions of western Westlake Village.

Within 30 minutes, nearly half the residents of Stafford Road in Lake Sherwood were gone.

Some stayed to spray their rooftops with garden hoses while others stuffed personal belongings and clothes into their cars in preparation to flee.

“They’re hosing down their roofs when they should be pulling out weeds,” groused one police officer driving through the area.

Joe Miskinnis stood casually in the middle of the street, Coors Light beer in hand, watching helicopters shower a flaming ridge with water scooped from Lake Sherwood.

“We just moved here in July,” said Miskinnis, who had already loaded his Jeep with tax and mortgage records. “We’re hoping for the best.”

Alice Berson, a longtime Lake Sherwood resident, said: “I’ve lived here a long time and I’ve seen plenty of fires. I have a lot of faith in the fire department. If it’s going to go, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Her daughter, Susie Johnson, agreed. “If it’s gonna burn, it’s gonna burn.”

Throughout the day, firetrucks and fresh crews from as far as Lake Tahoe and the Nevada Department of Forestry streamed into Ventura County beneath thick towers of brown smoke rising from burning brush and buildings.

As night fell, about 2,000 firefighters had fought to contain about 40% of the entire 35,400-acre Thousand Oaks fire. Most of it still raged out of control along 10 miles of open fire lines.

Meanwhile, firefighters had contained 50% of the open fire lines in the 21,000-acre Santa Paula fire, but Ventura awoke beneath a dense shroud of brown smoke and a constant rain of fine ash from that fire, and Wednesday’s crew of 230 firefighters on scene had swelled to 400.

Then afternoon winds pushed fire over the lines near Aliso Canyon and began threatening several ranch houses.

Fire officials called for air support, managing to snag two of the five air tankers working the Ojai fire.

As tankers bombed brush with fire-retardant chemicals, four bulldozers fell back and began cutting a new 18-mile firebreak to the west, from Foothill Road on the south past the tip of Canada Larga to Sulfur Mountain Road.

Firefighters fared better on two other fronts.

By midday Thursday, fire crews had completely doused the 1,500-acre Simi Valley blaze before it could damage homes or cause any new injuries after four Los Angeles city firefighters were badly burned there the day before.

While arson investigators hunted for evidence, relieved residents put their homes back in order. Many had grabbed valuables and fled during the blaze, returning to find flakes of soot coating carpets, windows and swimming pools.

‘It’s a mess, but it could have been worse,” said Betty Butler, whose house on Dale Court was nearly consumed by flames. “If I hadn’t been so busy, I just would have sat and cried for those people in Altadena and Laguna who lost everything.”

In Box Canyon, where there are almost as many horses as people (about 700), residents gratefully carted home their livestock from corrals in the San Fernando and Simi valleys where they had taken them Wednesday.

“It was like being in a chimney--my horse was so scared he was sweating and shaking,” said Robin Seward, 20, a waitress who lives in the canyon.

By noon Thursday, the Ojai fire had burned 1,800 acres of brush around Wheeler Hot Springs resort and into Matilija Canyon residents’ back yards, but caused no injuries and destroyed only one mobile home.

The blaze, which began just off California 33 about a quarter-mile west of the spa, was termed suspicious by fire officials.

Overnight, only a single helicopter had provided air support, dumping water on the fire. Then air tankers finally arrived Thursday to begin dumping pink clouds of fire retardant chemicals into the fire’s path. By early evening, the fire was 40% contained.

“This fire has virtually died,” declared Santa Barbara Fire Capt. Charlie Johnson, strike team leader in charge of protecting 65 homes and buildings in the steep canyons there.

“Everybody’s exhausted,” said Oxnard Fire Capt. Michael O’Malia after working the Ojai fire for 27 hours straight. “And there’s still plenty of fuel here.”

President Clinton declared a federal disaster area in Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego and Orange counties, promising federal aid to fire victims.

The Thousand Oaks fire, called the Green Meadow fire, proved the most dramatic.

Bulldozer crews spent the night cutting lines around the fire to block its march toward Camarillo State Hospital, but flames came close. About 60 emotionally disturbed youths were moved to a less-threatened wing of the huge facility for about three hours overnight. Fire crews fanned out from barracks there for the California Conservation Corps and the California Youth Authority to beat back the blaze.

About 60 Carlisle Canyon residents were evacuated, but at least six refused to leave, insisting they had cleared enough brush from around their property to make it safe to stay and help defend their homes.

A short time earlier, a fireball swept down the canyon in a sudden rush, propelled by a hot wind generated by the fire itself and throwing sparks out around it.

A young panther and a lioness at the Animal Actors of Hollywood ranch on Carlisle Canyon Road had to be shot because they were too savage to be moved safely, fire officials said.

Three 14-man California Youth Authority inmate crews cut firebreaks through dense brush with chain saws and axes, while firefighters lit backfires during a lull in the wind to deprive the fire of fuel that could help it jump to houses in higher wind.

Back in the burned areas along Deer Canyon, neighborhoods were eerily quiet, a wet ocean breeze washing over the rubble of homes that burned the day before. Their owners were nowhere to be seen.

But on Yerba Buena Road, nine men linked by blood and friendship stood for two hours watching flames roar toward Gene Dennis’ home. For two days, Dennis enlisted friends and family to clear a 250-foot firebreak around his modest ranch home. He moved out his horses and most of his possessions.

Then the men watered down their clothes, donned goggles and wrapped bandannas around their mouths. They hooked hoses up to a swimming pool and an 8,000-gallon water tank and waited, sprinkling down the shingles.

“I can’t force you to leave,” a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy told Dennis. “But I have to take your name if you’re staying.”

“That’s what you gotta do if you’re family,” said Rocky Dennis, Gene’s brother. “You stick together. You’re drafted, like it or not.”

Shortly after 2 p.m., the fire roared into the neighborhood, devouring a neighbor’s home. The firestorm’s gusts howled across the knoll under Dennis’ home, smoke nearly blotting out the sun. As the men stood their ground the fire passed, then they broke into grins.

“I guess we were lucky,” said Rocky Dennis. “We’re gonna grab our surfboards, some women and some beer and party at the county line,” shouted Andy McMahan, Gene’s cousin.

“We’re ecstatic,” said Gene. “My house is still standing and so are my trees.”

Sites of Canyon fires

Acres burned: 1,500

Status: 100% contained

Thousand Oaks fire

Acres burned: 35,000

Status: 35% contained

Firefighters: 2,000