High Winds Fan Blazes in Southland

Wildfires fanned by hot, powerful Santa Ana winds raged across forests and farmlands in Ventura and Riverside counties Monday afternoon, destroying several outbuildings and at least one house and prompting the evacuation of more than 50 homes and a high school.

Three fires in Riverside County were contained by nightfall, but the largest--a 9,200-acre blaze in the Los Padres National Forest near Santa Paula--continued to burn out of control.

Hampered by temperatures in the 90s, relative humidity that dipped to a parching 8% and winds gusting up to 70 mph, firefighters barely were holding their own against the fast-moving Ventura County blaze.

Crackling sheets of flame ripped through avocado and orange orchards and licked close to farmhouses and horse corrals, worrying ranchers along the rugged border between the populous Santa Clara River Valley and the mountainous Sespe Condor Sanctuary.

“It burned like a laser across the hillside,” said Fillmore Fire Chief Pat Askren, pointing to the sharp, charred lane that the fire had etched through the brush.

More than 2,000 firefighters swarmed across rocky hillsides, trying to stop a fire that had burned out of control since it began Sunday on a remote Seneca Oil lease. Fire engines stood guard by ranch houses. Bulldozers and hand crews cut firebreaks along ridgelines, hoping to stop the fire from hopscotching westward into heavily populated Santa Paula Canyon.

Fire crews set backfires so the burned land might block the main fire from advancing later. Helicopters and air tankers swooped low over rough terrain, bombing hot spots with water.

Thick brown smoke poured down the Santa Clara River Valley to the sea, choking off a view of the Channel Islands from the Ventura coast. Smoke and ash kept many in western Ventura County indoors Monday and blanketed the area with an eerie, lung-scratching haze.

In Santa Paula, authorities believe that the flames were sparked by low-voltage wires. Because of the smoke, schools there held lunch hours indoors. Outdoors, salesmen hosed soot off new cars, and produce merchants dusted powdery ash from fruit and vegetables.

On the outskirts of Fillmore and Santa Paula the more than 50 homes were voluntarily evacuated Monday morning, authorities said. Two sheds and a trailer were incinerated nearby, but no homes were burned.

Rancher Edwin McFadden had watched the flames roar through a third of the 250 acres of avocado trees at his Rancho Simpatica. “It’s easily a million dollars [of losses],” he said wearily.

While neighbor Joylene Papnicolaou loaded her horses onto a Ventura County Animal Regulation trailer, McFadden tied bright orange ribbons to some of his remaining trees, marking those he was willing to sacrifice to backfires that might have to be set to halt the advancing flames.

Ventura County animal control workers evacuated the Steckel Park Aviary, whisking ostriches, emus and other exotic birds away from the flames. The workers also evacuated horses from ranches along California 150, trucking them to a temporary corral at the Ventura County Fairgrounds.

John Lockhart and his wife Wendy Basil evacuated three horses, a donkey and a pony Sunday afternoon. A day later, as the fire continued to advance, they feared for their own lives.

“I never imagined it would be this scary,” Lockhart said. “It was like being surrounded by a ring of fire.”

In Riverside County, a fire that started in a grove of eucalyptus trees in Rubidoux spread rapidly as the winds scattered burning leaves through a small rural neighborhood.

The shake roofs of several structures soon were ablaze. A ranch-style home belonging to Rudy Rosas and his wife, Rose Marie, was destroyed, and a neighboring home and a garage at a third home were damaged.

“My neighbor called me at work and said our house was on fire,” Rose Marie Rosas said tearfully. “We had lived there 14 years.”

Betty Riley, owner of the damaged garage, said quick action by firefighters from the California Department of Forestry kept the flames from spreading to her house.

“I don’t know where that fire came from, but with these winds, I guess it could have come from anywhere,” Riley said.

Firefighters from the forestry department contained the blaze after it had blackened about 100 acres of grass and brush.

About five miles west of Rubidoux, a wind-whipped grass fire spread across a 120-acre alfalfa field, forcing the evacuation of 2,200 students from Jurupa Valley High School.

There were no reports of structural damage, but a 300-pound potbellied pig named P.J. was briefly imperiled when the flames threatened to engulf his pen.

When repeated entreaties failed to lure P.J. to safety, Joan Montana resorted to bribery. A bag of Fritos did the trick.

A fire near Lake Elsinore burned two travel trailers, two sheds, a diesel truck and a car, and blackened about 40 acres before it was brought under control.

Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., said the current heat wave is the product of a high-pressure system parked over Utah. Air tends to move from areas of high pressure to areas of lower pressure, and with relatively low pressure off the Southern California coast Monday afternoon, strong offshore winds raked the area.

The Santa Ana winds, heated and dried by compression as they swooped down mountain passes toward the ocean, led to higher temperatures along the coast than in some desert communities.

At 3 p.m. Monday, for example, coastal community readings included 94 degrees at Long Beach, 93 in Torrance and 89 in Santa Monica, while desert communities had readings such as 82 in Palmdale, 80 in Lancaster and 76 in Mojave. Monday’s top reading at the Los Angeles Civic Center was 96 degrees.

Monday’s 100-degree reading in Monrovia was the highest in the nation.

But Brack said the high-pressure system will start moving east by this morning, bringing a quick end to the Santa Anas. Forecasting gradual cooling over the next few days, he said today’s Civic Center high should be about 93 degrees, with a top reading Wednesday of about 88.

Times staff writer Tom Gorman and correspondents Scott Hadly, Eric Wahlgren, Andrew Blechman and Jeff McDonald contributed to this story.