Help Offered Against Danger of Mudslides : Safety: As rainy season starts, firefighters are providing free sandbags to residents in areas denuded of vegetation by blazes.

As another Alaskan storm approached Ventura County Thursday, firefighters offered free sand and sandbags to residents in areas where blackened slopes with no vegetation pose a threat of mudslides.

Up to 50 bags per household will be made available to residents in areas hit hard by the wildfires, Ventura County Fire Chief George Lund said. The bags can be used to build berms that will help divert mudflows if storms expected today and this weekend overwhelm the denuded earth, he said.

No mudslides or other damages were reported from the blustery Alaskan storm that swept into Ventura County early Thursday, leaving up to two-thirds of an inch of rain over parts of the region. But forecasters are calling for another storm to arrive early today, followed by a third system late Saturday or early Sunday.

Both are expected to bring only light showers, but Lund said homeowners in threatened areas should prepare now.

“I don’t think there is any extreme danger of flooding,” Lund said. “But we certainly recognize that preventive work can be done by homeowners.”

Areas qualifying for free sand and sandbags are the Deer Ridge development near Newbury Park, Hidden Valley and Deer Creek Canyon near the Pacific Coast Highway, Lund said.

Only homeowners whose property is threatened by erosion as a result of the fires will be entitled to the bags, Lund said. Other residents who want to prepare early for possible rain damage can buy sand and bags from building-supply stores, he said.

“We don’t want people going into fire stations and trying to pick up free sandbags just for preventive measures,” he said. “We’re just not funded for that.”

Free sand and bags are available to qualified residents at the following fire stations:

* Station 56, 11677 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Malibu.

* Station 33, 25 Lake Sherwood Drive, Lake Sherwood.

* Station 32, 830 S. Reino Road, Newbury Park.

* Station 30, 325 W. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks.

* Station 31, 151 Duesenberg Drive, Thousand Oaks.

A Simi Valley worm farm is offering free dirt to anyone who needs to build a berm or fill bags to fortify their properties. The Worm Concern at 1450 Tierra Rejada Road has 500 yards of dirt, available on a first-come, first-served basis, company spokesman Hamilton Holt said.

Casitas Dam got the highest amount of rainfall, .67 inch, in the storm that tapered off by sunrise Thursday, according to county rainfall statistics. Ventura received the lightest rainfall, with .11 inch.

The gentle showers extended over several hours and easily soaked into parched soil, said Dolores Taylor, senior engineer with the county’s Flood Control Department.

“The watershed is awfully dry and it can suck up a couple of inches of rain before we get any runoff,” she said.

Although today’s storm was expected to bring only half an inch of rain, isolated thunderstorms predicted for late afternoon could spawn potentially damaging downpours, said Gary Neumann, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Heavy rain in a short period of time could trigger mudslides in fire-ravaged areas, but it is difficult to predict where thundershowers might occur, Neumann said.

“It’s really hard to say where these things are going to pop up,” he said.

A low pressure system over Southern California has created a “storm track” that allows one storm after another to move freely from the Gulf of Alaska down the Pacific coast, Neumann said.

Another storm system could slide down to Ventura County by late Saturday, but will not carry much precipitation, he said. Long-range forecasts, however, show that storms will continue to arrive in the region every few days through the end of the month.

“It’s starting to shape up into a normal rainy season,” he said.

County Rainfall

Here are rainfall figures from the Ventura County Flood Control District for the 24-hour period ending 8 a.m. Thursday. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the official rain year.

Rainfall Rainfall Normal rainfall Location since Oct. 1 to date Camarillo .24 .47 1.06 Casitas Dam .55 .64 1.56 El Rio .22 .53 1.02 Fillmore .31 .61 1.46 Moorpark .24 .61 1.10 Ojai .49 .64 1.39 Upper Ojai .41 .58 1.50 Oxnard .16 .16 .93 Piru .27 .52 1.18 Santa Paula .20 .48 1.29 Simi Valley .27 .95 .99 Thousand Oaks .56 1.01 1.05 Ventura Govt. Center .15 .36 1.06