Camarillo Heights resident Maurice Kerr stood inside the shell of his burned-out home Thursday morning.
With the surrounding rubble still smoldering and smoke choking the air, the 68-year-old said he did his best to fight the wind-driven Mountain fire, which started raining embers on his home soon after it started Wednesday morning.
But facing 50- to 60-mph winds, the lone fire hose he was using — hooked up to his indoor pool — to try to beat back the flames wasn't enough. Nor were those of the firefighters who arrived and pulled him out as flames began to engulf the 4,800-square-foot ranch-style home, destroying his and dozens of other residences during the most extreme Santa Ana wind event to hit Southern California in years.
"I finally had to hose myself down to put myself out," he said.
The stunning toll of the fire became clear Thursday: Officials said 132 structures were lost and 88 damaged, making the Mountain fire one of the most destructive wildfires in the region in several years.
The fire had grown to more than 20,400 acres by Thursday evening, forcing thousands to evacuate and straining local resources. It swept into foothill communities around Camarillo and Moorpark, pushed westward by offshore winds that the National Weather Service deemed "particularly dangerous."
Shooting embers from the fire sparked new blazes up to 2½ miles ahead of the main fire line, officials said. Containment was at 5% as of 6 p.m.
Early Thursday, officials issued additional evacuation orders for residents in the Santa Paula area, just north of the Santa Clara River. They warned that more than 30,000 people live in the potential path of the fire and needed to be prepared for further warnings or orders as strong winds remained a concern.
Gov. Gavin Newsom spent Thursday meeting with first responders and visiting communities affected by the blaze. Around 5 p.m., he proclaimed a state of emergency in Ventura County to help mobilize resources to combat the fast-moving fire.
The Ventura County Sheriff's Office estimated that more than 5,000 homes were either under evacuation order or warning.
The fire “remains dynamic, and it remains dangerous,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said.
After a long night of crews battling the flames, helicopters were back in the air Thursday. Firefighters were focused on hot spots within the Santa Susana Mountains between Highways 118 and 126, said Ventura County Fire Capt. Trevor Johnson.
“It’s rugged, steep ground that only our finest firefighters can even access,” Johnson said. However, he was clear that, with mutual aid and their own crews, “we got the right people in the right places."
On Wednesday night, resources for firefighters were stretched as fires erupted in multiple locations.
"We put hundreds of firefighter trucks on the system last night, hundreds pumping all night long,” Gardner said at a news conference Thursday.
At one point, the chief acknowledged that "we did run out of water, high up in the heights," then elaborated that there were areas where "water pressure was either diminished or water flow was diminished."
Firefighters on the ground did say the water supply interruptions slowed them from fighting fires at times.
In Camarillo Heights — the upscale community home to a large portion of senior citizens, including Kerr — the remains of burned houses dotted the landscape, seemingly engulfed by random, off-shooting embers. On Old Coach Drive, 17 homes were completely destroyed; on Cerro Crest Drive, another 19. All that was left of one home on Valley Vista Drive was a chimney and a burned washing machine.
Kerr said he was grateful he and his wife had made it out alive, though little else survived. He pointed to a large safe lying on its side and said he was waiting for it to cool enough to recover passports and his watches.
He said they loved watching the sunset from what used to be their deck, but it is now nothing more than a few charred support posts. The raised beds of his vegetable garden were burned beyond recognition, his avocado trees now charred black.
“It got even my garden," he said.
The weather service on Wednesday issued a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag alert, warning of “widespread, extreme fire weather conditions” across southwest California. The alert hadn’t been heightened to that level in the Los Angeles area since 2020.
But forecasters Thursday predicted slightly better conditions compared with the day prior, with expectations that winds would not be as strong as on Wednesday and would decrease more quickly in the afternoon. A standard red flag warning was in effect over the fire area through 6 p.m., according to the weather service.
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