‘We Came, We Saw, We Conquered’ : Emergency: The Santa Paula fire is nearly contained, and the Ojai blaze is fully contained.

After three days of fighting fire, Larry Hadley was ready for some good news.

Weary and a bit homesick, the Los Gatos firefighter had been trying for three days to put out a stubborn brush fire in the canyons above Santa Paula.

So when weather forecasters early Saturday laid to rest fears that Santa Ana winds would reignite the flames, Hadley got the kind of news he had been awaiting.

He and some of his fellow firefighters got to go home.

“We’re beat and we’re tired,” said Hadley, anxious to get on the road so he could celebrate Halloween with his children. “We came, we saw and we conquered. Now it’s time to go home.”

As brush fires north of Santa Paula and Ojai were surrounded and brought under control Saturday, dozens of bone-tired firefighters were sent home.

Many spent the morning packing gear and preparing for long trips home. California Department of Forestry mechanics checked brake systems and other functions on a parade of red and yellow fire trucks that flowed through the Ventura County Fairgrounds as part of the demobilization effort.

“My job is to make sure the guys get home or get to another incident,” said Doug Davis, a department mechanic from Mariposa who spent the day crawling under homeward-bound firetrucks and approving their departure.

The Santa Paula fire, which burned 26,500 acres, was 95% contained Saturday evening, prompting fire officials to release or reassign some of the 1,190 firefighters who had been battling the blaze.

And near Ojai, where a wildfire blacked 1,650 acres, the firefighting force was scaled back to fewer than 200 people, down from a high of 285 Friday night.

That fire was fully contained Saturday evening and full control was expected by Wednesday.

Helicopters dropped water on a few hot spots that flared Saturday morning deep in the canyons above Ojai. But Jim Francis, with the Bureau of Land Management in Sacramento, said the fire is virtually cold every place else and that an unknown number of firefighters were sent home Saturday morning.

“We are down to a bare minimum,” Francis said. “Basically, most of our heavy firefighting equipment has left. We just don’t have a need for those things anymore.”

At the fairgrounds in Ventura, a line of firetrucks stood ready for inspection.

Nearby, firefighters set to return to the front lines caught up on sleep. Some munched on cold sandwiches or tossed around a Frisbee on the asphalt parking lot. Others sifted through the offerings at an auction that drew more firefighters than paying customers.

Etchi Haegele and her husband Ed were among the lucky ones.

Volunteers with the Oswald-Tudor Fire Department in Sutter County, the couple was preparing to go home Saturday.

“I’m ready to go home,” said Etchi Haegele, who had been fighting the fire since Thursday morning after an 11-hour drive from Sutter County. “It will be good to get out of these dirty clothes.”

Etchi and Ed Haegele became volunteer firefighters two years ago, after Ed retired from his teaching job at Yuba College and Etchi quit her teaching job at the same school.

“We just saw a notice in the newspaper one day,” Etchi Haegele said. “I really love it.”

Upon learning that they might be sent home soon, Imperial Valley firefighters held out hope they would be assigned to another fire.

“This is what we do best,” said Mark Grundman, a firefighter from El Centro. “This is what we get paid for.”

While some firefighters prepared to go home, more recent arrivals prepared to go back into the rugged canyons north of Santa Paula and put the fire out for good.

South Lake Tahoe Firefighter Bobby Ford grabbed a bite to eat after helping to dig a containment line around the Santa Paula blaze Friday night.

“Fire is a weird thing,” he said, his head wrapped in a bandanna and the name “Rachel” tattooed on his left biceps. “Once you get all of the right ingredients, it can happen anytime, anywhere. We’ll be here to make sure the fire gets put out.”