Fires Burn 365 Acres, Leave Family Homeless

A wind-whipped brush fire charred more than 365 acres in rugged terrain between Santa Paula and Somis on Monday, while a Christmas candle started a blaze that left a Ventura family without a home.

No injuries were reported in either fire.

Bracing for another night of fierce Santa Ana winds, officials said the brush fire straddling the ridge of South Mountain was 75% contained Monday evening and would be fully contained this morning.

About 270 firefighters from Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Ventura County and the California Department of Forestry struggled up treacherous slopes to knock down the blaze.

They were aided not only by bulldozers, helicopters and air tankers, but also by last year’s Bradley fire, which blackened 3,300 acres in the same area. With at least a decade’s worth of thick brush consumed last December, Monday’s fire was fueled in some places only by patches of light grass.

“That really does help to slow it,” said Joe Luna, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

Visible from both the Santa Paula and Somis sides of the mountain, the fire was reported at 5:15 a.m. Officials said it was ignited when winds as high as 65 mph blew down a private power line to an oil-production facility.

“We’re very fortunate to have no structures or populated areas nearby,” Luna said. The closest residents live several miles from the blaze on ranches in Coyote Canyon.

Firefighters were prepared to work through Monday night. Some would be fed at a command post set up at the Mesa School in Somis off California 118. Provisions for others would be brought to makeshift camps on the flanks of South Mountain by four-wheel-drive vehicles, or, in the more remote locations, helicopters.

Rushing to the front lines on Christmas Day was nothing new for the firefighters. Many of them spent last Christmas battling the 4,371-acre Ranch fire near Ojai.

“Last year, my wife brought Christmas trees up to the camp so we could celebrate,” said Ventura County firefighter Jim Kniss. “When I left home this morning, she asked, ‘Should I bring the tree?’ ”

In east Ventura, Christmas was bittersweet for the family of Ed and Denise Osiadacz.

Salvaging a few ash-laden belongings from his severely damaged home, Ed Osiadacz was grateful that his wife, their four children and his mother-in-law had escaped without injury.

“That’s the important thing,” said Osiadacz, a computer network engineer. “Everything else can be replaced.”

The blaze started at about 12:30 a.m., when an untended Christmas candle over the living room fireplace apparently fell.

While Osiadacz was attending midnight Mass, the rest of the family was at home. Washing the dishes from Christmas Eve dinner, his wife rushed to the living room when she smelled smoke.

Rousing the rest of the family, she helped them race to safety at a neighbor’s house.

By the time 35 firefighters extinguished the blaze, it had caused structural damage of $250,000 and destroyed possessions valued at $150,000, authorities said.

With help from the American Red Cross, the family spent the night at a motel.

They plan to house-sit for vacationing friends before deciding where to live until their home is restored.

The fire did not burn away Osiadacz’s sense of humor.

“We were thinking about remodeling,” he said as he gazed at his flame-blackened home, “but nothing this extreme.”