Calm Weather Helps Crews Fight ‘Ranch’ Fire

A stubborn 3,800-acre forest fire continued to burn out of control here Thursday, but clear skies and calm weather allowed crews to begin to get a handle on the blaze.

With the fire heading into rugged back country and away from houses, fire officials stepped up their assault with nine water-dropping helicopters, six air tankers and 60 hand crews.

Two firefighters suffered minor injuries Thursday afternoon. One sustained a broken ankle and was hoisted by helicopter out of a rugged area north of California 150. He was airlifted to Ventura County Medical Center, where he was treated and released. The other suffered light leg lacerations while attempting to cut brush. He was taken to Ojai Hospital, where he received eight stitches before being released.

By Thursday evening, fire officials had declared the so-called Ranch fire 30% contained and hope to have a line around it by later today. They do not expect the fire to be controlled until next week.

“Things are looking a whole lot better,” said Doug Lannon, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry.

“We are hitting it real hard with ground troops and from the air,” he said. “It means some of the crews will probably be here through Christmas.”

Meanwhile, a wind advisory was extended until 2 p.m. today that calls for northeast winds 25 to 35 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph. But the vicious 70 mph winds that fanned the flames earlier this week were not expected to return.

The Ranch fire broke out about 8 p.m. Tuesday between Santa Paula and Ojai, and moved quickly eastward as it was fueled by winds. One home in Sisar Canyon was destroyed.

By Wednesday morning, the fire was threatening homes and two private schools in the east end of Ojai Valley. Forty-five homeowners were ordered to evacuate.

But as the wind dissipated and an army of firefighters descended from across the state, fire crews were able to beat back the flames and spare homes.

On Thursday, there were no estimates on property losses or the cost of the firefighting effort that has included nearly 1,500 firefighters and hand crew workers. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.

As dawn broke over Ojai Valley on Thursday, weary state forestry crews hiked out of the rugged hills after a chilly night spent carving a perimeter around the southern section of the blaze.

Fire Capts. Brian Barron and Steve Carrera pulled back their 17-member crew about 6:30 a.m. after 12 hours of digging through steep, rocky terrain ringed with smoldering ash.

“We mopped up through the night,” Barron said, standing next to a pair of boxy red fire trucks parked on Reeves Road.

Based in Monterey County, the crew left a conservation camp early Wednesday afternoon and hit the fire lines by evening. Tired and cold, Barron said he hoped the blaze would be contained enough to let some out-of-town crews head home before Christmas.

“We’re all ready,” he said of his family in Clovis. “The packages are under the tree. I just said, ‘Hold Christmas until we get home.’ ”

About 7 a.m., a second state forestry department crew marched into the parking lot at the Thacher School after hacking at the scorched earth behind the campus all night.

Caked with dirt, sweat and soot, the crew members dropped their shovels and chain saws, then collapsed on the pavement.

“In my opinion, it’s a pretty shaky containment right now,” said Fire Capt. Michael Doi. “If the winds come up, it could flare up again.”

About 62% of the blaze is burning in a remote area of Los Padres National Forest along Horn and Wilsie canyons, officials said. The remaining 38% is on state forest land.

Some of those areas have not burned in 65 to 100 years, California Department of Forestry spokesman Lannon said. Although flames had approached a protected wilderness area that is home to condors and other threatened wildlife, fire officials say the danger appears to have passed.

As the fire marched northward Thursday, officials deployed 360 additional forest department workers to cut fire breaks. Meanwhile, about 100 firefighters were sent home because their trucks could not get near the flames.

“These engines are completely worthless,” said Oxnard firefighter Mark Todd, whose crew was preparing to leave the crowded command post set up at Soule Park. “There are no roads up there, so this is just turning into a big parking lot.”

At the command post, Visalia firefighter Craig Terry stood in line for breakfast alongside hundreds of other firefighters.

For Terry--a former Ojai resident and Nordhoff High School graduate--the fire presented an unusual kind of homecoming.

He was planning to spend Christmas here with family, and play a few rounds of golf at Soule Park. Now he may be sleeping there instead.

“I came to Ojai a day early--but not for my vacation,” he said.

As the valley heated up midday Thursday, helicopters continued to try to suppress a stubborn section of the fire still smoldering in dense brush along Reeves Road.

Elsewhere, tired firefighters tried to catch some sleep in the shade or curled up inside their trucks. Ventura County Fire Capt. Marty O’Mally was among those who gave up his vacation to work the Ranch fire.

“None of us have really slept in two days,” O’Mally said.

Ventura County Fire Capt. Ross Miller, who works out of Station 20 near the fire’s origin, was among the first to respond to the blaze.

By Thursday afternoon, his crew had also been working for nearly two days straight.

For Miller, the approaching holiday seems far away.

“Christmas? Maybe,” he said, noting that with firefighters no dates are certain. “But you knew that when you signed up for the job. It’s part of the job.”