Fire Burns 119 Acres in Simi Valley : Arson: Officials believe that the blaze, fueled by tall brush and fanned by Santa Ana winds, was deliberately set. Nearby freeway was closed awhile.

Borne on the season’s first hot Santa Ana winds, a swift, intense arson fire blazed across 119 acres of brushy hillsides Wednesday before fire crews crushed it out.

Thick, ocher smoke drifted across the Simi Valley Freeway for nearly three hours, forcing police at one point to shut down the highway.

That backed up traffic in both directions--for almost five miles to the west near Moorpark and several miles to the east into Los Angeles County.

Drivers sat fuming in their cars and trucks during the 45-minute closure as more than 300 firefighters from Ventura and Los Angeles counties worked to protect nearby subdivisions from the advancing line of crackling flame.

While no damage or injuries were reported, Ventura County fire officials pleaded for people to keep watch for arsonists during this, the windiest and fiercest wedge of the May-to-November fire season.

“The window’s open for this to occur,” said Sandi Wells, spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

Arid, 30-m.p.h. gusts whipped up dust around the command post as Wells spoke, and firefighters hurried to mop up the last patches of blazing brush before the fire could reach unburned grasslands.

People “need to pay special attention when the Santa Anas are blowing hot,” Wells warned. “They should look for suspicious people who don’t belong and activities that don’t look right. And they should report them to the Fire Department or the police right away.”

A California Highway Patrol officer was first to raise the alarm when flames took root just after 10 a.m. Wednesday in 6-year-old brush just off a fire road near the Kuehner Drive exit of the Simi Valley Freeway.

House painters Jamie Welch, Casey Holland and Matt Dedeo said they were driving up the westbound ramp at Kuehner when they spotted the blaze, about the size of a campfire.

“Jamie jumps out of the truck, he jumps the fence and takes off his shirt and runs over and tries to put it out with his shirt,” Holland said.

“I backed the truck back down the on-ramp and we all jumped out and started to run over there, and the CHP guy pulls up and pulls his gun and orders us to get away from it,” he said.

“Wrongly accused,” Welch chimed in.

The three men were turned over to county arson investigator Dave Chovanec, who questioned them as witnesses, but made no plans to file charges, Wells said.

However, Chovanec ruled out accidental or natural causes, leaving one conclusion, Wells said: Someone waited until winds were blowing hot and strong across Ventura County, and lit the fire on purpose.

Santa Anas are predicted to gust up to 35 m.p.h. today throughout the county, and temperatures will rise into the 90s along the coast and top 100 in the valleys, said Clint Simpson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

Soft, moist offshore breezes that usually bathe Ventura County are expected to return by Friday, bringing cooler temperatures for the weekend, he said.

On first word of Wednesday’s fire, county dispatchers sent a strike team of five engines, a helicopter and bulldozer straight to the scene.

More help arrived as the fire chewed its way across the steep hillsides, devouring dense, eight-foot-tall stands of brush. The flames hopscotched over ridges toward Flanagan Drive to the west and the Simi Valley Freeway to the south.

Two more helicopters joined the Ventura County Fire Department chopper, dumping hundreds of gallons of water onto the spreading lines of flame.

An aerial tanker from the California Department of Forestry swooped low over the hills, swerving in stiff, down-canyon winds as its pilot fought to keep control and drop his payload of bright pink fire-retardant chemicals.

Across the freeway, and downwind, an acrid pall of smoke wafted through Anna Posada’s neighborhood.

As a fine coat of ash pelted her shake roof, Posada nervously packed her car with provisions: clothes, diapers and other necessities for her children, ages 6, 2 and 1.

“I’m just going to throw anything I think I might need into the car, get the children and go to my sister’s house,” Posada said.

She had rushed home from work to pick up her kids after her sister called to say that the fire was raging across the highway from her home on St. Clair Avenue.

Some neighbors had already left with pets and kids, but others stood atop their homes, wetting their roofs with garden hoses.

“Maybe I should be watering it down,” she said, looking up at the dry shingles. “As soon as I get the kids out, I’ll probably go up there and do it.”

Traffic backed up on Yosemite Avenue as motorists were shunted off the freeway and onto surface streets--then quickly bogged down in looky-loo traffic lining Cochran Street.

Firefighters delivered the final blows on two fronts: Hand crews from the California Youth Authority and California Department of Forestry dug firebreaks that cut off flames from fresh brush along the fire’s northern edge.

And two bulldozers and a bull’s-eye water drop by Ventura County copter pilots simultaneously snuffed out a long, persistent tongue of fire that had reached across dry meadows toward the more populated neighborhoods off Yosemite Avenue.

Two young men--masked against the thick smoke by sunglasses and handkerchiefs--stood on a sound wall, gave an approving play-by-play of the firefighters’ work.

As the helicopter dived low for the pinpoint water drop, one man announced: “I think they got it that time.”

By 1:05 p.m., the freeway was reopened, and the traffic jams eased.

Correspondents Scott Hadly and Andrew Blechman contributed to this story.