Santa Paula Rancher Ready When Fire Hits : Canyons: Flames consume 21,000 acres--mostly grassland. No buildings threatened by Ojai blaze.

Larry Willett maintained an all-night vigil, knowing that the flames would come.

In the canyons just above Santa Paula, many residents believed they had endured the worst the wildfire had to offer. But along Sulphur Mountain Road, on the northern perimeter of the blaze, Willett and his neighbors prepared to fend off the flames.

It came Thursday afternoon. The canyon below Willett’s 45-acre ranch had burned slowly most of the day. But shortly before 3 p.m., whipped by a strong coastal wind, flames shot onto his property.

For more than hour, a dozen firefighters fought to keep the blaze away from Willett’s home, barn and collection of exotic birds.

“It came in here like you wouldn’t believe,” said Willett, who lost his hilltop home in a 1989 fire. “It’s been roaring all over the place.”

Throughout western Ventura County, Sulphur Mountain Road was the exception rather than the rule.

Although the Santa Paula fire had consumed 21,000 acres, most of the area blackened Thursday was grassland and brush-covered hills. And in the canyons above Ojai, where a separate blaze charred more than 16,000 acres, no homes were threatened Thursday.

“It’s all but died,” said Charlie Johnson, a Santa Barbara County firefighter and spokesman for the Ojai fire. “We lucked out because the temperature dropped and the winds died off.”

That fire started about 11 a.m. Wednesday west of California 33, about a mile north of Matilija Road.

By noon Thursday, the fire was 40% contained. Johnson said the 200 firefighters battling the blaze should be able to dig containment lines around the blaze within two days.

People in the tiny community near Wheeler Hot Springs spa spent Thursday mopping up minor smoke and water damage and swapping fire stories.

The blaze was the second one to race through the area in the past eight years, said Mary Sullivan, 66, owner of The Wheel Restaurant near the fire’s originating point.

Her business escaped unscathed in 1985 and survived the worst of the flames Wednesday.

“The Lord was with me then, just like he was yesterday,” Sullivan said.

Michelle Secrest, who also lives in Wheeler Hot Springs, said she grabbed a garden hose and began wetting down her house when she saw the flames.

“You feel pretty stupid when the flames are 75 feet in the air and all you’ve got is a garden hose,” Secrest said. “But it’s the only thing I could do. I couldn’t just sit there and watch it.”

Secrest, who has lived in the area for two years, said she fought the fire “by myself, with my 12 cats and a Volkswagen.” She said if the flames had jumped California 33, “it would’ve been all over.”

Above Wheeler Hot Springs on Thursday, the upper ridges were completely denuded of vegetation. Blotches of chalky white ash dotted the landscape.

Tom Sinor, a bartender at The Wheel, said that everyone in the community of about 30 residents pulled together in their efforts to fight the blaze.

“We took the babies off the hill, some of the mothers went with them,” Sinor said. “And the rest of us stayed here to take care of things.”

On the west side of State 33, the flames licked so close to the Wheeler Hot Springs spa that more than a dozen palm trees and oak trees ringing the resort were destroyed or badly burned.

Tom Marshal, who has owned the spa for six months, said a wall of flames approached his buildings so quickly that all he could do was order his employees to evacuate.

Marshal said that his business, which suffered smoke and water damage, will remain closed for a few days so electricity and water service can be restored.

“When you look at television and you look at places like Laguna Hills, you don’t worry too much about this,” Marshal said. “It pales in comparison.”

In the canyons above Santa Paula, many residents were expressing similar sentiments.

On Wheeler Canyon Road, residents moved their horses back onto their ranches Thursday. A ranch hand guided a herd of cattle up the canyon.

“We fared very well,” said Santa Paula resident Maxine Horn, cleaning up at the Wheeler Canyon ranch where she keeps her horses. “We’re just mending and fixing today. We’re getting it all back together.”

At Mupu Elementary School, on California 150 north of Santa Paula, children returned to class after the fire across the street forced closure of the 115-pupil school on Wednesday.

“Maybe I should’ve been more worried,” said Principal Jeanine Krejci, who never thought that fire would claim the school. “I just knew they would make a stand. I just knew they wouldn’t let our school go up.”

Despite the apparent lack of flames, fire officials warned that there was still plenty to be worried about.

Coastal winds drove flames from the Santa Paula blaze over a fire line that firefighters had been cutting along Aliso Canyon Road. Those flames briefly threatened several houses at the north end of Aliso Canyon.

Firefighters Thursday night continued to cut the 10-foot-wide firebreak stretching from Foothill Road to Sulphur Mountain Road. The wind was expected to continue blowing east through today, keeping the flames moving away from Ventura.

Earlier Thursday, an additional five air tankers had been sent to the Santa Paula fire, raising to eight the number of aircraft helping to put out the blaze.

The fire was 50% contained by Thursday evening.

Up on Sulphur Mountain Road, Tina Kee watched as firefighters buzzed around her mountaintop home.

“It’s a way of life up here,” Kee said. “When you live out here, you have to expect this kind of thing.”

Site of Ojai fire

Acres burned: 1,650

Status: 40% contained

Firefighters: 200

Santa Paula fire (Some areas within boundary were unburned)

Acres burned: 20,000

Status: 50% contained

Firefighters: 400