Brush Fire Consumes 3,330 Acres

Ventura County’s largest brush fire of the season broke out early Saturday morning in the dry, rugged hills between Somis and Santa Paula, injuring one firefighter and consuming 3,330 acres, fire officials said.

A firefighter from the Los Angeles County Fire Department suffered a minor injury while battling the blaze, officials said. Fast-moving flames also killed three cattle and burned a barn and three horse trailers near Sench Ranch in Somis.

High winds pushed flames into nearby orchards. The Ventura County Farm Bureau was still investigating the damage. Additional details were not available.

No other structures were damaged,

and there were no evacuations.

The blaze was 84% contained by late Saturday afternoon, said Sandi Wells, spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department. Wells expected the fire to be completely contained by midday today. Firefighters responded to a call at 2:11 a.m. Saturday, Wells said. The blaze began at Bradley Road and Solano Verde Drive and spread west toward Milligan Canyon. Flames reached heights of 15 to 20 feet, officials said.

About 450 firefighters from the California Department of Forestry, U.S. Forest Service and Ventura, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties fought the brush fire.

Winds up to 50 mph quickly fueled the flames toward Saticoy. The flames jumped over roads and through grassy pastures. Within an hour and a half, the fire had grown from 10 acres to more than 500. And by midmorning Saturday, entire hillsides had been blackened.

“The winds were really blowing--hard enough to knock us down,” said Danny Garcia, a firefighter with the Ventura County Fire Department. “And we were dealing with both flames and smoke.”

Garcia and his crew arrived at the fire about 2:30 a.m. and chopped fire lines by hand throughout the morning. Garcia’s crew supervisor, Dave Proett, said they had to wait until daylight to see where the fire was headed.

Saturday’s blaze was the county’s second large brush fire of the season. In mid-July, the Holser Canyon brush fire in Piru burned for three days and blackened more than 2,500 acres. Fire season usually begins May 15 and lasts until Nov. 15, but Ventura County extended its season because of recent high winds and lack of rain.

The cause of Saturday’s fire had not been determined by late Saturday, Wells said. Much of the fire was fought from the air. Six helicopters circled over the hills and canyons, dropping water onto the flames. And two fixed-wing planes dropped a bright pink fire retardant that smothers flames and fertilizes the land.

Bulldozers cleared fire breaks. And officials closed La Loma Avenue between Price Road and Walnut Avenue about 4:30 a.m., reopening the road in the afternoon.

Dozens of crews hiked through the rugged terrain, fighting spot fires and chopping unburned brush.

Female inmates from a Ventura County correctional camp formed one of those crews; they arrived about 4:30 a.m.

As the inmates cleared brush with chain saws and rakes, their supervisor urged them to keep moving up the hillside. “Let’s go ladies,” said Pepe Alvarez, a correctional counselor. “There’s nothing here. Scrape and move. Scrape and move.”

Farther down the hill, U.S. Forest Service Firefighter Travis Kunkle connected hoses to put out small flames. But by the time Kunkle arrived at 10:30 a.m., there were few flames still burning. “It pretty much died down,” he said. “But we’re trying to keep the fire from spotting, so no residences are threatened.”

In past years, there have been several large brush fires in the same hills between Somis and Santa Paula. In 1967, flames burned more than 17,000 acres, and in 1971, another blaze destroyed 2,900 acres. In 1975, 6,500 acres burned. And in 1986, more than 9,000 acres burned.

“Some areas are natural fire corridors,” Wells said. “They carry fire because of the steep terrain. And the way the wind was flowing through the canyon made the fire spread even faster.”