Blaze Erupts in Hills Above City Hall

The fire erupted in a flash of smoke and flames above the heart of the downtown district, surging quickly toward the hillside homes that crown this seaside city.

With the nighttime sky glowing red, residents moved into action. Some jumped on rooftops, grabbing garden hoses to protect their property. Others packed up precious belongings and made ready for a quick getaway.

Onlookers poured into the streets, watching a blaze pushed and pulled by a fickle wind. They were all waiting to see what would happen. To see if the fire would turn their way and make a charge. To see if their luck would hold out through the night.

On Aliso Street, the flames came as close as 50 feet to homes. It was a waiting game. Residents packed up cars, throwing mementos and family photos into the back seats. Then they stood in the street to watch the hillsides burn.

With a full, orange moon hanging overhead, there was an eerie stillness over the neighborhood while the noise of the fire crackled above them.

Nora Harrop and her friend sprayed down their yard with hoses. She was at work at The Ash Street Coffeehouse when she saw the flames in the hills.

“They told me to hurry home,” she said.

Neighbor Phil Passno swept through his house with garbage cans, tossing in pictures, records and the all-important computer equipment.

“My three dogs are up in the bedroom,” he said. “I’ve got their collars on and they are ready to go.”

Up the street, it was even more harrowing for those who still have shake roofs. Kitty Thomasin and her husband, Steve, had climbed up on their wooden roof, wearing masks to block the smoke. What they hadn’t counted on were the strangers who showed up to help them spray water on their roof.

“There are a lot of nice people up here helping us out,” Kitty Thomasin said. “I had a contractor here talking about remodeling and redoing the roof. He left at 6:30 p.m. And guess what, changing the roof is the No. 1 priority now.”

Olga Waller ran to the curb from her house on Aliso Street, her arms loaded with clothes as the flaming hillside hissed behind her. The flames were marching down the hill behind her house, coating her and her belongings in soot. Around her, a small and frantic mob of neighbors and strangers ran in and out of her house, racing her belongings onto the sidewalk and into waiting cars.

“I’m just numb,” she said, watching firefighters run a hose around her house and aim it at the orange hillside. “This all happened so fast.”

Firefighters told her the house would probably be all right.

But Mary Wolfington and her friends from east Ventura continued dragging out Waller’s belongings, photos, paintings and lamps. “We just came to look,” Wolfington said. “But when we saw people were in trouble, we had to help.”

The blaze, which started about 7 p.m., was determined to be the work of an arsonist, said Peter Cronk, public information officer for the Ventura County Fire Department

By 10 p.m., 20 strike teams, consisting of 100 engines and 500 firefighters, were battling the blaze. Officials closed a 12-mile stretch of Poli Street and Foothill Road from the downtown area to Wells Road in Saticoy.

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Five hundred acres were burned in the first three hours of the fire, officials said. By late evening, as a light rain began, evacuation plans were being implemented for some residents.

On Kalorama Street, fire burned the top of the hill then moved east without initially threatening the houses and apartments there. Firefighters drove along the street around 7:30, warning people of the fire.

Ventura’s Fire Engine No. 5 sat in front of a row of houses near the top of the hill with hoses linked to a fire hydrant.

“We’re going to protect these houses,” said Capt. Neil Gedney. Above him, the hilltop glowed from the fire.

As the night progressed, however, the fire switched direction and some Kalorama residents were evacuated.

Down the hill, dozens of residents stood on the street, watching the flames pushed back and forth by the wind.

“It’s nice to watch, as long as it doesn’t turn this way, said Carl Wheat, who lives on Khyber Drive off Kalorama.

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At one point it looked as if the wildfire would sweep into the ravine next to the Seaview Hills condominiums. Then the wind shifted and the fire continued moving east.

“We were debating whether or not to get our stuff out,” said Scott McVeigh, who lives at Buena Vista and Kalorama streets. “We’d go out and watch it for awhile and then go back in and pack some stuff.”

A bag of cat food sat just inside his front door, ready to go in a hurry.

At City Hall, witnesses said they saw a flash in the hillside up toward Grant Park before the flames erupted. With the strong gusts, which served to blow the fire quickly into the hillside, officials worried early on about what the blaze might do.

“It is moving fast,” Ventura Police Chief Richard Thomas said. “It could be in Santa Paula by the time the night is through.”

The fire, which began at 7 p.m., started in a shallow valley in the brush-filled foothills behind Ventura City Hall. Within five minutes, the first fire trucks arrived at the scene and took the places of a departing television crew.

The crew from the television series “High Tide” had taken a dinner break from filming at City Hall when production member Michelle Leve, noticed flames on the nearby hillside.

“I came out and I saw a swirl,” she said. “I thought it was dirt blowing from the wind until I saw the flames.”

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The TV crew of about 65 members immediately ran to the parking lot behind City Hall, where they had production trucks, camera equipment and their personal vehicles parked at the base of the hillside. About five crew members, including series star Rick Springfield, scrambled up an unburned section of the hillside to warn residents of the approaching flames.

“We ran up this hill,” said Danny Stephens, pointing to the burned hillside “and started spraying down the houses.”

Flames and swirling cyclones of smoke quickly alerted spectators at the Ventura High School homecoming football game against Hueneme High School to the potential disaster.

About half of the spectators from nearly full Larabee Stadium had left by halftime, led by residents scrambling back up hillsides and canyons to protect their homes. The game was canceled in the fourth quarter, and the stadium announcer asked spectators to leave in an orderly fashion and to stay out of western Ventura if possible.

“A lot of the parents paid and spent 15 minutes and they were out of here,” said Ruth Lopez, security officer at the stadium gate, as flames danced on the hillside, perhaps a mile to the northeast.

“A lot of kids left in a panic,” Lopez said. “It’s too close to home.”

A stream of parents continued pulling into the stadium parking lot to pick up their children throughout the game.

“I just wanted to make sure our girls were out of here,” said Darlene Kratavil of east Ventura. “I was just afraid that with the wind blowing this hard it would come too fast, people would panic and they would get trapped.”

Bob Beem, assistant principal at the school, said the fires had caused a planning snafu.

“The problem is that we have kids here who were dropped off here, and their parents expect them to be here [after the game],” he said. A homecoming dance scheduled to follow the game was also canceled.

As the spectators headed home, however, it appeared that the 50 mph ocean winds that fanned a series of hillside blazes were still blowing along the northeast edge of the city and skirting the most densely populated areas.

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Times staff writers Daryl Kelley, Mary F. Pols, Kenneth R. Weiss, Tracy Wilson and Phyllis Jordan contributed to this story, and correspondent David R. Baker also reported.