Crews Gain Upper Hand on Fires : Emergency: Officials declare the Thousand Oaks blaze 75% contained. Nearly 3,000 firefighters battle county’s three blazes.

After hammering away at devastatingly stubborn wildfires around Ventura County for nearly four days without a breakthrough, a massive force of firefighters appeared to have gained the upper hand Friday.

Yet while a daylong lull in the winds helped nearly 3,000 firefighters gain a steadier grip on the county’s three remaining blazes, firefighters were still worried that a predicted return of the Santa Ana winds during the night could spark more trouble.

Officials declared the 37,561-acre Thousand Oaks blaze 75% contained by midafternoon, after it had destroyed 43 residences, 23 outbuildings and seven telecommunications sites since it was set Tuesday by an arsonist. Firefighters continued to worked furiously all day to close as much of the 10 miles of open fire lines as possible.

Fire engine crews stood ready along Mulholland Highway in Los Angeles County north of Malibu. Bulldozer teams and chemical-dropping air tankers laid firebreaks across dense, 36-year-old brush to the east, in case hot winds pushed the fire toward homes in Decker and Trancas canyons.

Helicopters kept showering blazing brush with huge buckets of seawater around the exclusive Lake Sherwood Ranch development, where fire had nuzzled up to $3-million homes Thursday night before firefighters beat it back.

“They’re trying to do as much as they can before the winds pick up,” said Wayne Ferber, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesman. “If the winds pick up and there’s open fire lines, it’s open season again. There’s nothing we can do about it.

Along the southwestern edge of the 23,000-acre Santa Paula fire, 773 firefighters continued working. Strike teams burned scattered areas of dry brush Friday, trying to starve the fire of fuel in case the flames return.

Officials had declared that fire 60% contained by 7 p.m.

But they kept a close watch on the sky, preparing to evacuate parts of Ventura--two miles from their fire lines--in the event winds blew strong enough to push the fire into the city.

“It all depends on what the wind does,” said Carl Kent, a Tuolumne-Calaveras County fire official in charge of the scene. “The crews will be out tonight keeping those lines going. The potential is too great to let up.”

Near Ojai, firefighters had fared better, cutting firebreaks around 90% of the 1,650-acre fire near Wheeler Springs, where one residence had been destroyed.

Plane after plane dumped bright-pink, fire-retardant chemicals onto grassland ahead of the blaze while hand crews carved firebreaks through the brush.

“Our biggest concern is sundowners,” said Fire Chief George Lund of the fierce sunset winds that fed an inferno in Santa Barbara three years ago, leveling hundreds of homes.

“Yesterday we pulled tankers off two (other) fires to give the Forest Service the ability to paint that fire pink,” Lund said.

The National Weather Service predicted that prevailing ocean winds of about 10 m.p.h. would switch late Friday to 15 to 25 m.p.h. winds from the northeast, said Dennis Seto, a weather specialist. And the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District predicted temperatures would rise to 80 degrees while relative humidity would drop to as low as 5% by noon.

Gov. Pete Wilson flew to the Thousand Oaks fire command post in Borchard Community Center aboard an Army National Guard helicopter Friday morning for a briefing with incident commanders. He took off again to overlook the battle front along Mulholland Highway from the air.

He said he was impressed by the tireless efforts of firefighters battling the Thousand Oaks blaze. “What they have been called upon to do is what a surgeon is called upon to do in a battlefield, and that is to practice triage,” he said.

Wilson joined Lund aboard the sleek, black Viper helicopter, which then flew over the Lake Sherwood community, where firefighters Thursday night had fended off fires that had threatened 60 $2-million and $3-million residences.

At one point, the exhausted-appearing Wilson nodded off briefly in flight, then snapped awake. Looking down on scorched, black national park land, he shook his head, and pointed out C-130 Hercules air tankers readying to drop fire retardant on hot spots.

When he returned, Wilson thanked weary firefighters and said of the Thousand Oaks arsonist, “I wish I could get my hands on the bastard. I’d like to strangle him.”

Residents of burned out neighborhoods along the fire’s eastern front returned to sift through the ashes of what once were beautiful homes in rugged country.

Others found their houses intact, but land around them was charred black by the firestorm.

The air was thick with smoke where Robert and Vera House had made their home at the Lonesome Water Ranch in Carlisle Canyon.

From their screen porch, they reflected on their good fortune. “My father bought this land in 1915,” said Vera House, 80, fighting back tears. “We’re so grateful. It’s a miracle we still have our home. There’s no way we can say enough about the firefighters.”

Firefighting efforts on the Ventura County blazes have cost $2 million to date, and are mounting at the rate of more than $500,000 a day, said Abbe Cohen, fiscal manager for the Ventura County Fire Department.

Meanwhile, national park officials decided to postpone the grand opening for the vast 2,308-acre Palo Comado Canyon parklands near Thousand Oaks, better known as the Jordan Ranch.

Supt. David Gackenback, superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said that without full containment of the Thousand Oaks fire, it would be prudent to put off the opening of the new parkland until January or later.

As firefighters kept working to extinguish the three blazes, arson investigators continued working on clues on the people who sparked them.

Los Angeles city Fire Department officials said investigators are looking into a series of letters sent at random in early September by a man calling himself “Fedbuster,” promising to set fires to get back at agents for seizing his assets.

One letter being scrutinized by the FBI said: “They burned me, now I’m going to burn them back. I fight fire with fire. Like my puns, chump? Sizzle. Sizzle. You think the Oakland (Hills) fire was big? You should see my plans.”

“Los Angeles city Fire Department investigators have exhaustively pursued every lead relative to these letters,” department spokesman Brian Humphrey said.

Investigators do not believe the letters are associated with fires such as the 1,800-acre Simi Valley-Chatsworth blaze, he said. But he added, “The investigation is continuing.”

Lund said the Ventura County Fire Department received one of the letters. “This multi-page letter went to a lot of fire departments,” he said.

Lund said he doubts the fires in Ventura County were all set by the same person. But he said this was the first time his department had received a letter threatening arson.

Los Angeles arson investigators announced they have found an incendiary device believed to have started that blaze.

It was found at Santa Susana Road and Iverson Avenue in Chatsworth. They are asking anyone who might have seen vehicles stopped in the area between 12:30 and 1:30 a.m. Wednesday to call investigators at 1-800-47-ARSON, said Capt. Steve Ruda of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Also, Los Angeles police detectives said Friday they found human skeletal remains near the Simi Valley-Chatsworth fire site. But they determined that the person probably died before the fire began because the ground around the skeleton was scorched--it would not have been had the person fallen to the ground and died during the blaze, officials said.

Ventura County Fire Chief Lund told Wilson during a briefing that a motorcyclist was seen speeding away from the Los Robles Golf Course, where an arsonist started the Thousand Oaks blaze in brush just off the 15th and 16th greens.

And Ventura County Sheriff Larry Carpenter made a plea for Ventura County residents to be especially alert to people seen in brushy and back road areas who might be acting suspiciously. Anyone seeing suspicious activity should record vehicle license numbers and a description of the person or people and call 911, he said.

A Disaster Assistance Center will open today in Ventura County to help homeowners and business owners who suffered losses in the fires to apply for state and federal aid.

The center is at the Sheriff’s Training Facility at Camarillo Airport, 425 Durley Ave. The center will be open from 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday. For more information, call 1-800-462-9029, or 1-800-462-7585 for the hearing impaired.

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Contributing to coverage of the fire were Times staff writers Fred Alvarez, Dwayne Bray, Sara Catania, Tina Daunt, Pancho Doll, Daryl Kelley, Peggy Y. Lee, Carlos V. Lozano, Jeff Meyers, Joanna Miller, Mack Reed, Stephanie Simon and Constance Sommer. Also contributing were correspondents Maia Davis, Brenda Day, Julie Fields, Robin Greene, James Maiella Jr., Patrick McCartney, Jeff McDonald, J.E. Mitchell, Matthew Mosk and Leo Smith. Times staffers Jim Angius and Rod Bosch also contributed to the coverage.