Wednesday morning’s warning was dire. Southern Ventura County is poised to be hit by the region’s most intense Santa Ana wind event in years, bringing extremely dangerous fire weather to the region.
And conditions were exactly as predicted, with wind gusts of 60 to 80 mph hitting the foothills of Moorpark and Camarillo. The wind was blowing and it was dangerous to go alone. But the seeds of disaster were firmly planted when a small fire broke out in the wilds north of Somis.
“We’re talking about the most unstable of unstable conditions that can quickly lead to large-scale fire outbreaks,” said Ariel Cohen, chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Oxnard office. It’s about the situation.” “And that’s exactly what we’ve seen with wildfires.”
Within hours, flames were jumping from the rugged Santa Susana Mountains, over Highway 118, and tearing through neighborhoods in the foothills above Camarillo.
Fire officials are used to battling large fires this time of year, but a dire combination of extreme conditions and difficult geography hampered early efforts. The winds were so strong that planes dropping moderators were grounded, at least temporarily. The fire was moving so quickly that authorities were forced to focus on evacuation rather than putting out the fire.
“We faced very extreme conditions in Santa Ana, which of course changes our tactics,” said Captain Tony McHale of the Ventura County Fire Department. “So we have taken a more defensive posture, and the number one priority in that is human life.”
Water pressure was also unstable in some areas, forcing crews to shuttle water to key firefighting locations, but it’s not yet clear what impact this had. Officials say operations have not been affected, but others at the scene say this is a challenge.
Presumably, many areas in southwestern California were also on high alert for fires, some with red flags. At least one fire broke out simultaneously in Malibu, initially damaging a home.
This entire situation sparked what became one of Southern California’s most destructive wildfires in recent years. Within 24 hours, the wildfire destroyed more than 130 structures, mostly homes in the hills around Camarillo, and damaged 88 others, fire officials said.
On Thursday night, as winds began to ease, firefighters carried out initial efforts to extinguish the fire, which was 5% contained. More than 20,600 acres had burned as of Friday afternoon, most of it burned Wednesday, and crews said the fire was 7% contained. By Saturday morning, the containment rate was 17%.
While authorities are hopeful the fighting has turned around, residents and crews remain surprised by the speed and intensity of the fire.
Kyle Ferris, a fire behavior analyst with the Wildfire Incident Command Team, said when a fire moves this fast and throws so many embers everywhere, it’s very difficult to extinguish and predict. . He said the homes that ended up falling victim to the fire were chosen virtually at random and depended on where the embers landed, with some homes flying up to a mile ahead of the main fire. It is said that
Linda Elmo, 75, watched the wind pick up Wednesday morning and listened to the news until firefighters knocked on the door and told her and her husband, “Go, go!” I didn’t receive it. , go! “
“It just went by so fast,” Elmo said. Suddenly, a blaze broke out “in the backyard of this valley, by the house.”
Firefighters were first called out around 9 a.m. to a large forest fire on South Mountain in the Santa Susana Mountains. Authorities issued initial evacuation orders for the Moorpark area within an hour as they tried to deal with the rapidly progressing fire.
By 11 a.m., widespread evacuations were ordered as the fire moved farther into the mountain toward the Camarillo foothills, where winds picked up and pushed embers further into the fire, officials said. reported. Around 3 p.m., about six hours after the fire was first discovered, the fire exploded to about 9,000 acres without any means of suppression, burning dozens of homes.
Karen Chihigoyeneche, 81, and her husband Raymond, 92, were alerted to the fire by military personnel from the cable company and begged them to leave their home.
She immediately sprang into action and tried to call all the elderly people in the neighborhood. She grabbed an emergency bag filled with cash, a change of clothes, and medication.
“Traffic conditions were very bad and many emergency vehicles were trying to weave through the traffic jams,” Chihigoinetsche said. “can’t believe it.”
Carol Ann Higa, 77, and her roommate fled their home as they heard the roar of a helicopter overhead. She packed her clothes and ventilator in her bag, and her roommate loaded her oxygen tank into the car. She said when she left her home, the smoke was so thick she could barely see across the street.
“I can’t breathe,” she said. “I felt a shock in my chest and gasped for air,” she said.
It’s not yet clear how the fire started, but authorities are highlighting at least one victory in the incident: No deaths or serious injuries were reported. Cohen said this is evidence that the alerts are suitably dire and the messages are well-coordinated, allowing emergency officials to deploy resources in advance and residents to be as prepared as possible. He said he was able to fix it.
“You can’t completely stop something with this much inertia, and even with this much fuel burning fast, this spreads quickly. But if you look at the fire stopping at a certain point, , for example, it didn’t reach the coast, but in the end it saved a lot of lives,” Cohen said. “No one was caught off guard.”
Mark Lorenzen, chief of the Ventura County Fire Department from 2012 to 2022, said this wildfire could have been a repeat of the 2017 Thomas and 2018 Woolsey fires, but fortunately He said that such a situation did not occur.
The Thomas Fire, which has destroyed more than 1,000 structures and burned more than 281,000 acres in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, is characterized by low humidity, brisk Santa Ana winds, and a mix of urban and rural areas. The fire occurred under conditions similar to a mountain fire, with many dry bushes. .
“Every condition was perfect for a fire of this size,” the former fire chief said. Lorenzen believes the situation could have been much worse if the windy conditions had lasted longer.
“Despite the loss of homes there, we have had some success in avoiding loss of life,” he said.
The region has seen many fires over the years, especially in the fall when winds increase along a “favorable corridor” suited to Santa Ana’s dry, ferocious winds, Cohen said.
The effects of climate change are exacerbating the fire danger.
In the area of the Mountain Fire footprint, six other wildfires have burned more than 1,000 acres since 1986. More recently, the 2023 Southern Fire and 2019 Maria Fire burned thousands of acres on the western portion of the current boundary.
Six large fires break out within the wildfire boundary
The fire involves more than 1,000 acres. Mountain fire boundaries are as of November 8th.
National Interagency Fire Center, CalFire
Sean Green Los Angeles Times
More frequent and larger fires create a dangerous cycle, burning out more resilient brush and trees and creating areas for quickly drying and invasive grasses. This phenomenon was especially important this year, when two years of extreme growth were followed by record heat.
“This was definitely an area of great vulnerability,” Cohen said. Twelve consecutive months of up to twice normal rainfall produced large amounts of “smaller fuels” such as vegetation, brush and grass, “which formed the basis for the fire’s highly efficient spread.” ” he said. ”
Times staff writers Jire Deng, Sean Green, Noah Goldberg, Nathan Solis and Joseph Sarna contributed to this report.
