Land Cleared to Avoid Brush With Flames

With its dry avocado trees and a tangle of parched brush and overgrown grass, the abandoned 12-acre farm in north Ventura had long posed a fire hazard.

So when a wildfire that would eventually grow to 400 acres erupted on a nearby Ondulando area hilltop Saturday, neighbors feared the worst. Favorable winds spared the old farm at Victoria Avenue and Foothill Road, but the weed whackers attacked it Thursday morning.

“It would have put everything in jeopardy, our house and the orchard,” homeowner Terry Maas said Thursday from the balcony of his Hidden Valley home as he watched workers remove the jungle of vegetation. “I was so upset when I saw that smoke billowing and I thought we were a week too late.”

In a tinderbox fire season that has seen twice as many fires as normal for this time of year, similar programs have been completed across the county, said Mark Sanchez, assistant fire chief with the Ventura County Fire Department.

Ventura’s fire hazard reduction program--the name was changed last year from weed abatement to better reflect its intended purpose--is credited with protecting a cache of hilltop stables near the Saturday blaze’s origin.

“If they hadn’t cleared away from the stables, it’s a good chance it would have consumed them,” said Assistant Fire Chief Rick Achee. “If the wind had been blowing toward the houses . . . then the weed-abatement program would have been a critical factor in not losing any of them.”

Indeed, flames burned within inches of the wooden stables even though most of the vegetation had been cleared, said stable owner Dennis Frey, who alerted authorities to the blaze and evacuated the horses.

“If this hadn’t been abated, I don’t know whether I would have had the time to get the horses out by myself. It went that fast,” he said pointing to the blackened earth.

The hazard reduction program mandates the removal of potentially hazardous vegetation near 2,635 properties along the city’s northern perimeter. The program is enforced at homes and buildings in the Clearpoint, Hidden Valley, Ondulando and Skyline subdivisions, as well as those north of Cedar Street, Foothill Road and Poli Street that are considered to be in the city’s high fire hazard area.

Most of those homes are in typical suburban tracts. The problem, authorities say, is the large swath of arid grassland behind the tracts.

In 1971, flames leapt across the city’s skyline when wildfire raged from the Ondulando subdivision to the Avenue area, consuming about 11,000 acres, Achee said. That blaze destroyed two homes on Colina Vista, where Saturday’s blaze began.

Among other program requirements, property owners must keep vegetation within 100 feet of any structure at not more than 3 inches in height.

This year, all but 250 of the affected property owners have returned a form certifying that the necessary work is finished, said weed abatement officer Kathy Revard.

She will begin visiting tardy property owners next week--a visit that will cost each one $55. Compliance among homeowners is surprisingly good, she said.

“They have a real passion about it,” she said. “It sounds real mundane, but they’re talking about their lives, their families, their property.”

Richard Atmore Jr., known by neighbors as “the weed abatement cowboy,” clears much of the land behind the subdivisions for three different cattle ranches. Even though the required clearance is 100 feet, the ranches pay for 115 feet as a courtesy to homeowners, he said.

Other land owners similarly exceed regulations for safety reasons.

In one extreme approach to weed abatement, 13 neighbors of Mary Joyce Ivers, a resident of the Skyline tract, anted up a total of $6,800 to remove 13 pine trees up to 40 feet tall on her property in March. The act was partly motivated by the desire to reclaim the view but has also lessened the fire hazard, she said.

“We feel it is safer,” she said. But, she added, “Last Saturday, if the winds were going differently, I would have been extremely nervous.”

Officials regard the Ondulando area, where about 40% of the 35-year-old homes still sport wood shake roofs, as among the most susceptible to a dangerous wildfire.

Yet Achee, himself a resident of the subdivision, said most residents, while prepared, don’t spend much time fretting over the danger.

“With a little common sense and a little work in fire areas, you can protect yourself and live there safely,” he said.