Firefighters continued to make progress Sunday against the destructive Mountain Fire in Ventura County. The fire, which 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, officials said.
Eleven areas remained under evacuation orders Sunday night, including neighborhoods around Santa Paula and Somis. Another five were under evacuation warnings, where residents were asked to prepare for possible evacuation. Updated evacuation information is available on the Ventura County Sheriff's Emergency Services Incident Dashboard.
“I know we suffered extensive damage, but thousands of homes were saved and hundreds of lives were saved,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said Sunday night at a community meeting. “We suffered losses, but we can rebuild.”
Light winds off the ocean and favorable humidity levels on Sunday helped authorities in efforts to contain the fire, which began Wednesday morning amid an extreme wind event in Santa Ana. The fire forced thousands of people to evacuate and disrupted the lives of residents in several communities. The cause is still under investigation by a team of state and local specialists.
Officials said they were continuing to monitor changes in the weather as winds were expected to pick up again Monday night into Tuesday morning, although they were not expected to be as strong as the winds that initially fueled the fire. .
“It's something we're watching closely,” National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Walbrun said at a news conference Saturday night. “The wind speed at this time does not appear to be as strong as when the fire started.”
More than 130 structures were destroyed by the fire, most of which were homes. Another 46 were damaged, said Justin Boyajian of Cal Fire Tulare.
“We're doing the best we can,” Boyajian said, “trying to help as much as we can to people who have lost their homes.”
Hundreds of people 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, a 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 over the months and years. coming.
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 although there were 11,000 structures in the area, saving lives was the priority.
Jim Fryhoff, Ventura County Sheriff, said his deputies and staff joined the mass evacuation effort.
“We were lucky that the fire started at 9 in the morning, when it was already daylight. Imagine this at 9 at night, where it is already dark. “Then you cut the power to an area that is already dark and then you add smoke to that,” he said at the community meeting. “This had the opportunity to be exponentially worse.”
Gardner said he understood people in the community were frustrated and needed 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 also plans to bring together several service providers on Wednesday to help answer residents' questions about the recovery process, he said. He asked for patience as firefighters continued working to contain the fire.
“We continue to work diligently … to put out this fire, get things cleaned up, get things closed and get things ready for people to come back,” Gardner said. “And that takes time.”
