Firefighters continue to make progress in battle against Mountain fire in Ventura County

Firefighters continued making progress Sunday against the destructive Mountain fire in Ventura County. The blaze, which has burned more than 20,600 acres and destroyed 134 structures, was 31% contained Sunday night as firefighters continued mopping up hot spots before winds were expected to pick up again Monday, authorities said.

Eleven areas remained under evacuation orders Sunday night, including neighborhoods around Santa Paula and Somis. An additional five were under evacuation warnings, where residents were asked to prepare for a potential evacuation. Up-to-date information on evacuations is available at the Ventura County Sheriff Emergency Services Incident Dashboard.

“I know we suffered great damage, but thousands of homes were saved and hundreds of lives were rescued,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said Sunday night at a community meeting. “We suffered loss, but we’re able to rebuild.”

Light winds coming from the ocean and favorable humidity levels Sunday helped authorities in the effort to contain the fire, which started Wednesday morning amid an extreme Santa Ana wind event. The blaze led thousands to evacuate and upended the lives of residents across a number of communities. The cause is still under investigation by a team of state and local specialists.

Officials said they were continuing to monitor changes in weather as winds were expected to pick up again Monday night through Tuesday morning — though they were not expected to be as strong as the winds that initially fueled the fire.

“It’s something that we’re watching closely,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Walbrun at a news conference late Saturday. “The wind speeds right now do not look to be nearly as strong as when the fire started.”

More than 130 structures have been destroyed in the fire, most of which were homes. An additional 46 have been damaged, said Justin Boyajian, with Cal Fire Tulare.

“We’re doing the best we can,” Boyajian said, “trying to help as much as we can for people who have lost their homes.”

Hundreds were without power in parts of Camarillo, Santa Paula and Somis, and it was not immediately clear when power would be restored, said David Eisenhauer, spokesman for Southern California Edison.

At a community meeting Sunday night at Ventura County Fire Station 54 in Camarillo, local and state officials answered questions from residents and detailed their response to the fire and the difficult recovery and rebuilding process in the months and years ahead.

Gardner, the fire chief, summarized the challenges of the evacuation effort: 30,000 people reside in the fire area and, of those, 7,000 do not speak English. He said that although there were 11,000 structures in the area, saving lives took priority.

Jim Fryhoff, the sheriff of Ventura County, said his deputies and staff joined the massive evacuation effort.

“We were fortunate that the fire started at 9 o’clock in the morning, with daylight. Imagine this at 9 o’clock at night, where it’s already dark. Then you lose power in an area that’s already dark, then you add smoke on top of that,” he said at the community meeting. “This had the opportunity to be so exponentially worse.”

Gardner said that he understood that people in the community were frustrated and in need of more information about what recovery would look like. He and other officials announced a new website where the county would post information about the rebuilding process. The county is also planning to bring together various service providers Wednesday to help answer residents’ questions about the recovery process, he said. He urged patience while firefighters continued working to contain the blaze.

“We’re continuing to work diligently ... to get this fire suppressed, to get things mopped up, to get things closed up and get things ready for people to come back in,” Gardner said. “And that takes time.”