Jump in Arson Blazes, Return of Santa Anas Worry Fire Officials

As summer heat edges unrelentingly into fall, Ventura County fire officials worry that the onset of hot winds from the desert will inflame an already busy fire season, marked by tinder-dry conditions and an unprecedented number of arson blazes.

“When the Santa Anas come we are really going to need a lot of help from people in the community to alert us to things, to suspicious people and suspicious vehicles,” said Sandi Wells, public information officer for the Ventura County Fire Department. “This year we have so much dry material out there.”

The areas of most critical concern are the Santa Monica Mountains, Wildwood Park, Carlisle Canyon near Thousand Oaks and in the Ojai, Santa Paula and Fillmore regions.

Thousand Oaks is very vulnerable to wildfires, Wells said, because it lies at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, abutting wilderness areas along its length. Even though more than 68,000 acres burned from Newbury Park to the Pacific during the Green Meadow fire just three years ago, brush has regrown rapidly and could easily burn again.

“If you look at the overall mountain range, only a fraction of it was really touched, even though it seems like so much,” Wells said. “And the regrowth has been incredible. There is a lot of thick brush already back where it was.”

In Ventura County, fire season started in earnest months ago with the Grand fire, which burned 10,400 acres of mountainous countryside from Fillmore to Santa Paula in late April.

Coming at a time when the hillsides and valleys are typically emerald green from spring rains, the Grand fire was the earliest large-scale wildfire in local history. Driven by erratic winds, its swiftness and intensity startled county officials, who immediately began preparing for a dangerously volatile fire season.

Fire officials’ fears have been exacerbated by the suspected presence of at least three serial arsonists in the county who have started a record 25 fires from Ojai to Thousand Oaks since April.

“That really surpasses any records that we have,” Wells said. “This is really an active year.”

In July, a combined task force of investigators from the county sheriff’s and fire departments and the U.S. Forest Service closed in on an Ojai man suspected of setting at least four fires near the mountain town.

Kenneth Allen Lee, 35, is accused of igniting a 145-acre fire June 29 in the foothills of the Topa Topa Mountains. He is also charged with starting a series of small fires in Ojai on April 30 and May 1, at a time when firefighting forces were busy battling the Grand fire. He pleaded not guilty to the charges last week.

But even though fire officials say they are confident that Lee is responsible for the Ojai fires, they are just as certain that there are more arsonists still roaming the county’s parched hills.

At the beginning of July, 11 brush fires were set in Thousand Oaks--10 of them within a two-hour period. Arsonists appear to have driven from one location to another, setting blazes in areas where open-space preserves press up against suburban tracts.

None of the fires burned more than a few acres, largely because of early notification by residents, light winds and a quick and massive showing by firefighters.

“We jump on every fire because of the fact that we haven’t had rain in quite a while,” Wells said. “The grass burns so hot and fast, and we have so much of it. So we attack it with everything we have.”

*

During fire season, a one-alarm wildfire automatically gets a response from five engines--typically only one responds between the end of November and May--a helicopter, a bulldozer and a hand crew of 12 firefighters.

Wells said her department has received considerable aid this year from residents. In the Wildwood area of Thousand Oaks, where a brush fire burned 25 acres in June, firefighters were delighted to find that homeowners had replaced wood-shake roofs with tile and steel alternatives. And instead of clearing brush from the required 100 feet around their homes, many had cleared 150 feet.

Residents have also been watchful, a key component to catching arsonists. Just minutes after a fire started above luxury homes in Triunfo Canyon on July 2, Westlake residents spotted a pair of teenagers who had been playing with model rockets leaving the scene. They detained them, turning them over to police.

While Wells doesn’t want anyone endangering themselves by taking arsonists into custody, she said community participation helps fire investigators tremendously.

Using a $10,000 grant from FEMA, county fire officials have been training Neighborhood Watch groups to act as arson watchers. Wells said the Fire Department is happy to come out and explain the program to any neighborhood group that asks. Last weekend, firefighters spent three hours offering pointers to volunteers with a Thousand Oaks open space agency.

“Just having all those extra eyes out there for us has just been great,” she said.

More help is on the way. Super Scooper firefighting airplanes, usually brought in from Canada in October, are expected to be available for use across Southern California by Friday.