Heat, Hills Hinder Fire Crews Near Fillmore

Struggling on rugged slopes in triple-digit heat, hundreds of exhausted firefighters battled a wildfire Wednesday that has devoured more than 10,000 acres of thick, old brush northeast of Fillmore.

As the wind shifted in midafternoon and the fire spread toward the southeast, California Highway Patrol officers patrolled Piru Canyon Road beneath a brown pall of smoke, warning homeowners and ordering 14 campers out of the Lake Piru Campground.

Weary fire commanders said their crews’ hold on the fire line remained weak Wednesday evening, and they predicted that they would not have the blaze controlled until sometime this weekend.

Fire commanders said wind and the speed of the fire wrested control of the fire from their grasp about 2 p.m. as they tried to stop it from leaping east across Hopper Canyon and burning toward Lake Piru.

Firefighters hosed down buildings at Dominguez Ranch, cleared brush and set backfires. They also sent five engine strike teams to protect ranch houses and buildings around Lake Piru.

“The original plan was to hold at Hopper Creek,” said Orange County Fire Department Capt. Mike Fardig, one of the strike team supervisors. “But it got away from us.”

By nightfall, sheriff’s officials were preparing to evacuate the 1,000 residents of Piru if the fire made it necessary, although winds were dying and humidity was rising.

As winds pick up this morning, the humidity will drop and fire crews will attack active parts of the blaze early, said Ken Field, a U.S. Forest Service weather specialist.

With the terrain too steep for bulldozers and most trucks, the battle was left largely to water-dropping helicopters and more than 1,000 firefighters.

Firefighters also battled a 21,300-acre blaze near Santa Maria in Santa Barbara County. And late Wednesday, a small 5-acre fire was burning out of control in Malibu State Park, the flames fed by a 15-mph wind.

In Ventura County, firefighters labored in 110-degree heat and thick protective clothes, using hand tools and hoses to carve firebreaks that would keep flames from reaching homes.

“You’re wearing safety gear, two pairs of pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a brush shirt and a helmet,” said Wayne Ferber, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department. “You dress kind of warm. And you just can’t work that fast in that kind of heat.”

U.S. Forest Service engineer Tracy McGruff, a second-generation firefighter, said wearily, “We don’t pay attention to it, and we don’t dwell on it. If you hear it’s 110, you feel worse than if you don’t know.”

Meanwhile, arson investigators combed through an oil well site and the charred brush around it, looking for clues to what sparked the blaze Tuesday afternoon.

Later that evening, the flames came close to destroying a U.S. Fish and Wildlife study center at Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, said biologist David Clendenen.

The fire has killed innumerable songbirds that live in the brush, possibly jeopardizing an avian population study that biologists were hoping to finish Wednesday, he said.

Fillmore resident Dan Mathews said he hurried to remove heirlooms and prized possessions from his family’s cabin in Dominguez Canyon east of the fire Tuesday night, in case the flames came his way.

“I guess our time has come,” he said after emptying trunks, pictures and guest books from the cabin, which has been in the family for five generations. “We haven’t had a major one in a while.”

Although aircraft were also in demand at other fires in Riverside and Los Angeles counties, Ventura County fire commanders were able to muster 10 helicopters to drop water on the blaze.

These included smaller copters with a 300-gallon capacity, plus a massive Sikorsky SkyCrane, which lumbered to and from the fire lines and dumped 3,000 gallons at a time from Lake Piru onto the flames.

But hand crews did the lion’s share of the work.

Strike teams posted themselves near ranches and around some of the more than 100 oil wells in the rugged Sespe Condor Sanctuary.

Weary members of a U.S. Forest Service crew flopped down to rest around a Vintage Petroleum Inc. well perched on a 3,000-foot peak at the fire’s northwestern--and most active--edge.

They had just finished cutting firebreaks around the well site, scrambling over steep hillsides and digging chaparral and manzanita out of the ground with steel tools and brute force.

Faces caked with grime, eyes pouched with fatigue, they awaited their next assignment in the midday heat.

Firefighter Chad Christensen, 21, slouched in the bench seat of a water tender, his yellow Nomex fire jacket smeared black.

“If you start talking about the heat, you know, you’re dead,” he said. “You’ll beat yourself down. At this point, it’s a mental game.”

Firefighter Lorien Brightbill, 27 slumped beside him, considering his own mud-caked khakis, his sooty face and the half-moons of filth beneath his fingernails.

“You don’t pay attention to how dirty you are,” Brightbill said. “You finally realize that when you shower and the water turns black. But we’re a day away from [showers].”

Reed is a Times staff writer and Chi is a correspondent. Times staff writer Scott Hadly and correspondent Scott Steepleton also contributed to this report.