Fire Forces Fillmore Evacuations

A fast-moving brush fire swept into scattered residential areas on the edge of this Santa Clara Valley farm town Monday, triggering evacuations and leaving more than 3,800 charred acres in its wake.

Residents held off the fire in some places with garden hoses as palm trees above their homes exploded in flame, but no structures burned. No injuries were reported among the town’s residents or the 1,019 firefighters from Los Angeles and Ventura counties who converged on the blaze.

Authorities said the fire, which was accidentally ignited Sunday by a spark from a welder’s torch, was 50% contained by nightfall. Winds that had been feeding the flames shifted direction, pushing the fire southwest toward uninhabited canyons.

Fire officials would not predict when the blaze would be brought under control.

A dark cloud of smoke hundreds of feet high loomed over town Monday afternoon, turning the sun blood-red. Ash wafted as far as Ventura, 20 miles to the west.

Some 60 people were ordered to evacuate from a hillside apartment complex called Valley View Heights. They were first ordered out Sunday night, allowed back, then evacuated again Monday afternoon as a wave of flame crackled through dry grasses several hundred yards up the hill.

The families were allowed back into their apartments by Monday evening.

“It appears that the worst--as far as the Santa Ana [wind] conditions--is over,” Fire Capt. Mike Lindbery said . “Our winds overnight will be southwesterly, pushing it away from the city of Fillmore and back into the back country.”

With daybreak, Lindbery said, shifting breezes could again push the brush fire toward town, but Santa Ana conditions are expected to die down today.

Crouched in the parking lot of the Arundell Circle complex, firefighters on Monday aimed flare guns toward the blaze to ignite the backfires that would halt its progress.

Meanwhile, a knot of about 100 residents stood at the foot of the hill, gazing up at the flames inching closer. With his two leashed dogs, his caged iguana and a suitcase, Mike O’Brien felt helpless.

“I had the rest of my stuff ready to go, but they won’t let me back up there,” he said.

Intent on retrieving his pet dogs, one man tried to run past a police barricade. Officers tackled him, doused him with pepper spray, and issued a citation before releasing him. Police did not identify the man.

Isabel Rodriguez sat with her three children in a fast-food restaurant, regretting her move to Fillmore from Santa Ana last year.

“Nature attracted me out here,” said Rodriquez, whose house was just a block from the wind-whipped fire. “But during the windy season, we’ve got fires and during the rainy season we’ve got floods. Maybe I should have stayed a little closer to civilization.”

Thickly falling ash covered the ground. Residents complained of burning eyes and throat irritations.

The fire started Sunday about 7 miles east of Fillmore, when a spark from a welder’s torch jumped into dry brush off Piru Canyon Road, authorities said. Officials declined to identify the welder, who was repairing a metal fence at the time.

If he is found negligent, he may be subject to a fine, authorities said.

The fire grew quickly, swept by Santa Ana gusts. Humidity was just 13%; any moisture content less than 30% dramatically increases the risk of a blaze, according to firefighters.

Early Monday, officials closed Highway 126 for three hours to speed the flow of fire equipment to Fillmore.

Hours later, the fire ignited a ruptured Texaco pipeline just east of town, burning paraffin, a petroleum byproduct. For hours, a thick black plume towered over the area, limiting visibility for the firefighting helicopters scooping water from nearby Lake Piru.

The pipeline fire was doused within hours.

At the same time, the days-old Los Padres National Forest fire had scorched at least 2,300 acres in a remote section of Santa Barbara County. No homes were threatened but wildlife biologists worried about the threat to endangered species such as the Arroyo toad and a bird called the least Bell’s vireo.

Throughout the day Monday, exhausted firefighters struggled to keep the Fillmore blaze outside the city. Many had snatched just 90 minutes of sleep since arriving Sunday afternoon.

“It’s been tiring,” said Ray Ponce, a Ventura County fire reservist who was shoveling dirt on a dying flame. “But this fire moves fast, with the wind pushing behind it, jumping from canyon to canyon.”

When embers blew into frontyards along Pole Canyon, shrubbery caught fire and several trees burst into flames.

Standing in his frontyard, Vern Arnold, a 26-year resident, maintained a determined calm as firefighters drenched his burning bushes.

“OK,” he said as the fire died, “so far we’re OK. The heart is beating a little fast but as long as the firefighters are here, we’re OK.”

Times Community News reporter Nick Green and Times staff writer Miguel Bustillo contributed to this story.

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Fillmore Fire

A fire sparked by a welder’s torch in Piru on Sunday spread west to Fillmore on Monday, charring about 4,000 acres, damaging an oil facility, and threatening numerous houses and apartments. More than 1,000 firefighters from throughout California battled the blaze, beating it back into the hills north of the city by day’s end.