Holiday Busy for Lifeguards, Firefighters

For the many Ventura County residents who weren’t working Labor Day, Monday was all sunshine and relaxation. But for those who were laboring, Monday was plenty busy.

Lifeguards hauled more than a dozen people to safety on the county’s beaches, most of them swimmers trapped in riptides off South Jetty Beach near Ventura Harbor.

In the middle of rescuing a 12-year-old girl caught in a riptide, Ventura Harbor officials had to pluck two floundering jet-skiers out of the surf late in the afternoon, their second such rescue of the day. Less than two hours earlier, an injured jet-skier was taken to the hospital with a broken leg, said Deputy Harbormaster Pat Hummer.

County firefighters were called to action just before 5 p.m. when rangers at Lake Piru noticed a small brush fire about a quarter-mile from the lake’s dam. By 7:20 p.m., the one-acre fire was extinguished with help from the U.S. Forest Service. Officials blamed the blaze on people playing with fireworks.

A second small brush fire in Moorpark was knocked out by firefighters in less than an hour. Reported just before 9 p.m., the fire near New Los Angeles Avenue burned a quarter of an acre.

California Highway Patrol officials didn’t have to worry much about speeding traffic as local freeways were jammed with slow-moving holiday traffic. Despite the heavy traffic, no injury accidents were reported. “I guess they’re all being good out there,” said a CHP spokeswoman.

In Oxnard, Southern California Edison workers had to restore power to the Oxnard Factory Outlet Center, The Marketplace shopping center and portions of El Rio.

John Britton, regional manager for Southern California Edison, said an equipment failure on Ventura Boulevard--probably a result of operating continuously on a hot day--was the cause of the outage, which hit at 1:20 p.m. About 955 customers were affected. Power was restored to 95% of the area within 40 minutes, Britton said. By 4 p.m., it was completely restored.