In a 4 p.m. news conference on Wednesday, Ventura County officials updated the public on the status and speed of the Mountain Fire, as well as the crews’ plans to prioritize lives and safety amidst the dangerous conditions.
As of 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, CAL FIRE reported the fire has stretched across 10,500 acres in Ventura County, destroying homes and structures and remains at 0% containment.
Some key takeaways from the news conference include the following.
Follow evacuation orders.
“Your homes can be replaced, your lives can’t,” stated Fire Chief Dustin Gardner, driving home the importance of following these orders. “This fire is moving dangerously fast. If you’re from the region and you know Southern California weather, you know how dangerous these fires are. When you get an evac order from the sheriff, leave. These aren’t one of those fires where you can wait.”
If any animals need shelter, Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said large animals can go to the Ventura County Fairgrounds, and small animals can go to the Camarillo Pet Shelter near the airport.
For ongoing evacuation orders and road closures, visit: vcemergency.com.
Avoid the area.
“Please, stay away,” urged Sheriff Fryhoff. “Please continue to stay out of the area unless you absolutely need to be here.”
Fryhoff said law enforcement has already contacted over 14,000 people to evacuate the area.
Trevor Johnson, Fire Operations Chief, said the fire has already hopped the south side of Highway 118 and is also continuing to run southwest toward the Highway 101 corridor.
“Unfortunately the fire did hop to the south side of 118, becoming established in a fuel bed there, north of the city of Camarillo,” said Johnson.“We’ve fought fire in that ground before, the right people are in place and our firefighters are doing nothing short of heroic out there right now across the incident.”
Johnson said the fire is also now established north of South Mountain Road down into the Santa Clara River bottom, running south of the community of Santa Paula.
Winds are pushing the flames southwest, affecting the communities of Somis, according to Johnson.
The fire is moving at a rapid and dangerous rate of speed.
“This is a classic Santa Ana wind event,” said Fire Chief Gardner.
Gardner said the fire has been spotted more than two-and-a-half miles out in front of itself.
Resources are responding from many surrounding counties and agencies, such as Los Angeles, Orange, Kern and Santa Barbara counties, and CAL FIRE and their sheriff partners.
“Every helicopter, every fixed-wing aircraft, everything we’ve been able to get a hold of is here fighting this fire, and it is moving at a dangerous rate of spread,” said Gardner.
The Red Flag conditions are forecasted to continue for at least another 24 hours.
The Santa Ana winds will continue in the 20-40 mph range with gusts as high as 60-80 mph until about 6 p.m. Thursday, and humidity is less than 10%, according to Jeff Shea, Weather and Fire Behavior Division Chief.
Resources are faced with “a tough firefight.”
Operations Chief Johnson said the fire was already well established upon initial arrival Wednesday morning, impacted by the winds and burning off of various agricultural fuels.
“Firefighters were right off the bat engaged in pulling people out of their houses and saving lives,” said Johnson.
Crews are heavily prioritizing life safety, structure protection and property conservation.
“With a fire this magnitude, there’s so much going on at once that you can’t handle every issue. So what we do and what we were trained to do is prioritize,” Johnson said. “And what is valuable is the people of Ventura County, the people traveling through our county, and their homes, their property and their well-being.”
Officials are urging residents to sign up for alerts and continue to monitor the news for updates.
“We’ve put every available resource to the incident, working with our partners to bring quick resolve to this incident, but this is a tough firefight,” said Johnson.