Hillside Fire Burns 15 Acres of Brush

VENTURA —  Fire crews spent Sunday afternoon fighting a 15-acre brush fire near Seneca Street on the west end of the city, the county’s first major brush fire of the new year and a sign that the extended fire season has not let up.

Eleven engines from Ventura County and city fire departments battled the hillside blaze that began about 3 p.m. The fire started at the base of a hill just above a neighborhood of stucco-covered homes and apartments, then jumped southward into and across a small ravine.

Scores of residents poured out of their homes to watch as two Ventura County Fire Department helicopters continually swooped low on the hillside, dropping water on the fire.

The flames were never closer than several hundred yards from the neighborhood, and no homes were in immediate danger, a fire official said.

Officials are still investigating the cause of the fire, but resident Bryant Woody told a county fire investigator that he saw a pickup truck drive away from the barren hillside just as flames began lapping the brush.

Woody said two men drove the truck high onto the hill, then turned around and drove out of the neighborhood. Woody said he didn’t get the truck’s license plate number, but described it as a late-70s model truck with a winch on the front bumper.

Firefighters had contained about 40% of the fire’s perimeter by 5 p.m., said Assistant Chief Mike Lavery of the Ventura Fire Department. County fire crews brought in a bulldozer that climbed the steep hillside and plowed a circle around the blaze as a firebreak.

In addition to the 40 firefighters who extinguished most of the blaze, Lavery said four hand crews were expected to work through Sunday night, making sure the blaze didn’t flare up again. The crews also planned to extinguish several small flaming pockets on the hillside.

Several utility trucks waited to investigate other damage, including a hillside electrical pole that appeared to have been scorched.

While portions of the east county were doused with an unexpected rainstorm on New Year’s Eve, the west county remains dry, continuing an unusually long fire season.

Fire season, which usually ends around November or December, “is still open countywide,” Lavery said.

Nearly two weeks ago, a 4,371-acre fire near Ojai destroyed one home and prompted the evacuation of two dozen other residences. That fire was caused by fireworks, officials said.

The hillside above Seneca Street in the Avenue area of Ventura last burned in October 1996. Residents remember another blaze in the area eight years ago that may have been started by a juvenile setting fire to a bush.

During Sunday’s fire, children and dogs played around fire engines, and neighbors used binoculars to watch firefighters in yellow suits work their way up the hillside.

“It’s interesting to watch,” said neighbor Bill Leslie. “It’s never going to amount to anything. It’s just local entertainment.”

Leslie said he’s “seen this happen too many times” to worry that the flames would touch his nearby apartment, but he lamented the damage to the open space he said area residents cherish.

“What you’re seeing is our park burning up,” he said. “The sad part is there’s a lot of wildlife up there.”