Brush Fire Consumes Hundreds of Acres

The largest brush fire of the season broke out Tuesday afternoon at a campground in the Los Padres National Forest and had consumed as much as 700 acres by 9 p.m., federal fire officials said.

There were no reports of injuries Tuesday night and no homes were in the immediate area of the fire west of the Golden State Freeway, fire officials said.

The blaze was 40% contained as of 9 p.m. and there was no estimated time when it would be completely out, said Joe Pasinato, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

About 100 additional firefighters were going to be brought in overnight to help the 300 firefighters already on the scene, Pasinato said.

“They’d like to attack this fire as aggressively as they can with as much personnel as they can get and do it as quickly as they can,” Pasinato said.

The fire began about 2 p.m. at Kings Camp, a campground on Gold Hill Road in northeast Ventura County and just west of Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area, fire officials said.

A man driving an all-terrain vehicle near the campground saw smoke and called authorities, said Kathy Good, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.

The cause of the fire had not been determined, but campers were present at Kings Camp when the blaze started, fire officials said.

A federal arson investigator was called to the scene Tuesday night, Good said.

The fire spread quickly to the north because of 10-mph winds blowing toward the north and northeast, officials said.

The wind, however, shifted to the south by early evening, fanning the fire back onto itself and slowing its spread, Good said.

There was no immediate threat to the Golden State Freeway, officials said.

The blaze was being fought primarily from the air because of rough terrain and lack of a nearby water supply, said Maeton Freel, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman.

Three water-dropping helicopters and eight air tankers were sent to aid the firefighting, he said.

Those aircraft were grounded at nightfall but were expected to resume delivering water to the scene at daybreak, fire officials said.

More than 300 federal and state firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Forestry were on the job, along with dozens of hand-crew teams digging a line around the blaze, Freel said.

Additional hand crews were expected to come from the Los Angeles County Fire Department. At least 20 more engines were also expected to join the effort today, fire officials said.

The fire is the first major blaze in Ventura County since the start of the fire season June 1. There have been at least four other small brush fires that burned fewer than 5 acres each, fire officials said.

In April, authorities, citing heavy brush because of El Nino-related storms, forecast what was expected to be the worst local fire season in years. But recent rain and cooler temperatures this month have changed that prediction.

Fire season runs until after the beginning of the winter rainy season.