Santa Ana Winds Stir 500-Acre Brush Fire

Santa Ana winds whipped up the season’s first major brush fire, which scorching about 500 acres Monday in the remote mountains north of Fillmore. No injuries were reported.

The blaze was 50% contained by 8 p.m. but was not expected to be extinguished until 6 tonight, fire officials said.

The cause of the fire had not been determined as of late Monday, Ventura County fire spokesman Joe Luna said. But investigators were looking into several possibilities, including electrical lines felled by strong winds or a vehicle backfiring and sparking brush, he said.

The fire began about 100 feet from the small mountain offices of a condor monitoring facility, Luna said.

Monday’s blaze ran near the western edge of the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, which includes the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife’s condor center nearly 4,000 feet above sea level. No condors were harmed because the birds were not being housed at the site when the fire broke out, fire officials said. No other structures were threatened by the blaze.

At least 350 firefighters and another 250 support staff members from six city, county, state and federal agencies worked on the ground throughout the day to contain the flames that broke out about 6:30 a.m. Winds, which gathered Saturday and built Sunday, peaked at 60 mph Monday morning in the mountains, creating conditions too rough for helicopters waiting to assist. The estimated cost of fighting the fire had topped $250,000 as of late Monday, Luna said. In addition to the so-called Foothill fire, county firefighters battled a smaller blaze Monday afternoon that forced the closure of Harbor Boulevard between Ventura and Oxnard for more than three hours. A eucalyptus tree beside a strawberry field caught fire shortly after 2 p.m. The fire burned about 25 acres of scrub brush and trees between Gonzales Road and 5th Street. Winds blew embers from the fire across Harbor Boulevard, which prompted the road closure, authorities said. The fire was put out about 5 p.m.

By Monday afternoon, the winds were dying down. Temperatures, which hit 87 degrees Sunday in Simi Valley, were also dropping. Weather officials expected a reprieve from the hot, dry winds for at least a week, and said temperatures today should settle in the mid-70s with 15-mph winds.

But the gusts left their mark.

About 13,000 electric customers countywide lost power for short periods Sunday night and Monday morning, Southern California Edison officials said.

Edison officials said they’d expected worse. “As forceful as the wind was, I’m kind of surprised there weren’t more people affected,” said regional manager Rudy Gonzales.

Public works officials in many cities scrambled to clear tree limbs and palm fronds from the roads. Commuters gripped their steering wheels and tried to stay on course along the Ventura Freeway. Falling trees damaged two unoccupied cars in Moorpark, sheriff’s officials said.

Wind triggered at least 100 false alarms of home security systems countywide, tying up many law enforcement officers. In Ventura, officials said an antenna flew off a home and struck a chain-link fence, sending sparks flying. Holiday flags and wreaths were ripped from residents’ front doors and blown down streets.

At Ventura Harbor, the wind complicated the Coast Guard’s predawn efforts to bring a fishing boat in after it lost its steering, Patrol Officer Bob Crane said. A rescue ship tugged the boat to a dock. As rescuers tied the boat to a cleat, however, high winds tore the cleat from the dock.

As daylight broke, operators of Christmas tree lots awoke to a mess of their own. At the Northwest Fresh by Lisa lot on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, workers hadn’t slept much anyway. They spent hours watching the wind topple their inventory of 270 trees. Some workers ran out to reinforce a tree tent. “It was like, ‘Timber!’ ” said a frazzled Janet Harrell, 60, whose daughter owns the Oregon-based operation.

“The whole Santa and his sleigh fell down,” she said, surveying the smashed wooden decorations scattered among pine needles, dirt and fake snow. “Some of the reindeer lost their legs.”

In the Foothill fire, treacherous ridges and deep canyons impeded firefighters, as water tanks, bulldozers and fire engines had to meander slowly along bumpy dirt roads. Wind whipped dirt into firefighters’ eyes and threw some off balance. The blaze, which was burning on federal land, skirted dozens of oil pumps dotting the mountainside. The rigs are owned by Seneca Resources Corp., Hunter Resources Corp. and Santa Fe Energy Operating Partners, which lease land from the government, Lunda said.

He also said brush clearance around the pumps stopped flames from getting near the rigs, but the threat of fire mixing with oil and water was imminent all day. “Any time a fire gets near those installations, it’s always a concern,” he said.

Fires here have been worse, however. A 1997 brush fire swept through 25,000 acres that included this area. Tim Davis, an engineer with the U.S. Forest Service, said this time crews were lucky. For one thing, as the day progressed the wind appeared to force the fire back toward areas that already had burned.

Bruce Rockwell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, says this has been a late season for the Santa Anas. The winds, which materialize in spurts each year from October through late winter, generally are triggered by high-pressure ridges that build over the Mojave Desert.

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Talev is a Times staff writer, and Blake and Wolcott are correspondents.