Firefighters began to get the upper hand on the Mountain Fire on Thursday as the weather turned in their favor, though by the evening the fire was still just 5% contained and had burned through more than 32 square miles.
The fire started a little after 9 a.m. on Wednesday, near Balcolm Canyon Road in rural Somis. Later that day, it jumped more than 2 miles south across Highway 118 into Camarillo, and homes in Camarillo Heights and other neighborhoods started going up in flames.
On Thursday, there was "no significant growth" of the fire in or near Camarillo, said Nick Cleary, a battalion chief with the Ventura County Fire Department. Firefighters also stopped the progress of the flames before they reached Ventura, putting out a few spot fires in the bed of the Santa Clara River just east of the city.
Instead, the "most significant action" on Thursday was at the eastern end of the fire, in the Somis area closer to Moorpark, Cleary said.
"We're not out of the fight yet," he said.
The Mountain Fire had burned almost to the city of Moorpark in the east, nearly to the Ventura city limits in the west, and north to the Santa Clara River in Santa Paula.
Authorities have only begun assessing the damage, but they have already found 132 structures destroyed and another 88 damaged, Andy VanSciver, a spokesperson with the Ventura County Fire Department, said during a news conference on Thursday evening. Most of the structures were single-family homes, and the hardest-hit neighborhood was Camarillo Heights, he said.
Those figures are likely to climb higher, because by Thursday evening, the Ventura County Fire Department's damage assessment teams had only visited 298 properties, finding nearly 3 in 4 of them destroyed or damaged. VanSciver and other officials could not estimate how many properties are left to check.
"This is a slow process because we have to make sure the process is safe," he said, by ensuring that spot fires are out and natural gas lines and other potential hazards are secure.
Ten people were injured in the fire, Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said. Most of the injuries were smoke inhalation, and none of them are life-threatening, he said.
By Thursday evening, the fire had burned 20,596 acres and was 5% contained, which means firefighters had secured 5% of the perimeter of the fire.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Ventura County, which opens up state and federal funding for firefighting operations. Newsom also toured some of the affected neighborhoods Thursday with officials from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
When the fire started Wednesday, it was fanned by extremely high Santa Ana winds from the east -- conditions that led the National Weather Service to issue its first "Particularly Dangerous Situation" red flag alert since 2020. But on Thursday, the winds died down, and the National Weather Service removed its red flag alert, except for high elevations.
Ariel Cohen, the weather service's chief meteorologist in Oxnard, said the last red flag alert should be lifted by 11 a.m. on Friday. By Friday afternoon, the winds should be coming from the west, bringing cooler temperatures and higher humidity and making it easier to fight the fire. Higher winds and more red flag warnings are expected again next week, Cohen said.
On Wednesday, the fight was slowed at times by power outages and shortages of water. At higher elevations in Camarillo Heights and Las Posas Estates, fire crews could not always get enough water pressure, Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said.
One reason for that was the normal demands of firefighting -- with hundreds of engines tapping into fire hydrants, "it overwhelmed the system," said Ian Pritchard, deputy general manager for the Calleguas Municipal Water District.
A water pumping station in the already also burned, Cleary said, and that added to the problem.
Fire crews plan to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and lower winds at night by flying helicopters and dropping fire-retardant chemicals, Gardner said. He said he expects crews will spend "the next four or five days getting this under control."
In the meantime, authorities are urging people who have been evacuated to stay away from their homes.
Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said his deputies helped people evacuate from more than 400 homes on Wednesday and Thursday, and found another 800 or so empty after the residents presumably evacuated on their own. At about 250 homes, the residents decided to stay, Fryhoff said.
Deputies will "heavily patrol" all of the evacuated areas to keep the homes safe, he said.
"We will not tolerate looting of any kind. ... Anyone who wants to come here and try that, they'll be spending a lot more time here than they planned," Fryhoff said.
Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at [email protected]. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.