Firefighters in Southern California made progress in extinguishing a wildfire that destroyed 132 structures, most of them homes, but were forced to sort through the remains of charred homes as they were fanned by strong winds that began to weaken Friday. Some were able to return to do so.
Marianne Belote returned to a hillside in Camarillo, northwest of Los Angeles, after a harrowing evacuation with her cat, dog and horse as fires raged through the area.
The only thing standing was the rock wall she had built.
“If I hadn't gotten the horse, I would have been devastated. But I have a family and I have animals, so I'll be okay. I'll rebuild,” she says as she puts her dog in the car. She spoke, standing outside the ruins of the house where she lived for 50 years.
The wildfire broke out in Ventura County on Wednesday morning and has grown to 32 square miles (about 83 square kilometers).
Friday morning it contained 7%.
Bill Nardoni and his family rummaged through the rubble of their Camarillo home Friday afternoon and discovered a wedding ring in a safe.
But his wife's belongings remained unaccounted for in a separate safe in another part of the house, and Nardoni had little hope that they would be found intact.
Nardoni, his wife and visiting mother-in-law fled with their dog Wednesday morning as flames engulfed both sides of the road.
They returned on Friday to find the house they had bought just a year earlier, still being renovated, in disrepair.
“The house is in ruins. There's nothing we can really salvage from it,” he said.
“I don't know what to do.”
Approximately 3,500 buildings in suburban, ranch and agricultural areas around Camarillo in Ventura County remained under threat of fire, and thousands of people remained under evacuation orders Friday morning.
In addition to the 132 buildings destroyed, at least 88 additional structures were damaged.
Officials did not say whether it was burned or suffered water or smoke damage.
The cause of the fire has not been determined.
Ten people suffered from smoke inhalation and other injuries, but none were life-threatening, Ventura County Sheriff James Freihoff said.
County fire officials said crews working in steep terrain with the assistance of water cannon helicopters were on a hillside along the northeastern edge of the fire scene near the city of Santa Paula, which has a population of more than 30,000. The focus was on protecting housing.
Officials in several Southern California counties urged residents to be on alert for rapidly spreading fires, power outages and fallen trees during the recent infamous Santa Ana windstorm. That includes rural areas in northern San Diego County where wildfires forced mandatory evacuations. Friday afternoon.
Santa Ana winds are dry, warm northeasterly winds that blow from inland Southern California toward the coast and offshore, in the opposite direction of the normal overland currents that bring moist air from the Pacific Ocean.
They usually occur during the fall and continue through the winter until early spring.
Red flag warnings, which indicate high fire risk conditions, were lifted for most areas on Thursday, except for the Santa Susana Mountains, where the warnings were lifted on Friday morning when winds began to die down.
Santa Ana is expected to return early to mid-next week, said Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
An air pollution alert for harmful particulate pollution was in effect from Friday morning until Saturday afternoon due to wildfire smoke.
More than a dozen school districts and campuses in Ventura County were closed Friday due to fires, according to the county's Department of Education.
The Mountain Fire occurred in an area that has seen some of California's most destructive fires in many years.
The fire quickly grew from less than half a square mile (about 1.2 square kilometers) to more than 16 square miles (41 square kilometers) in just over five hours Wednesday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Ventura County.
