Is there a fire blazing in Ventura County now?”
MOORPARK – A wildfire fueled by triple-digit heat, single-digit humidity and gusty winds consumed thousands of acres in Ventura County as more than 850 firefighters battled to protect 1,000 homes from the blaze. “That is the fire weather trifecta right there,” said Bill Nash, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesman. The Guiberson fire, named after a road where the fire started Tuesday morning in the agriculturally rich city of Fillmore, was 10 percent contained as of Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, the fire quickly spread southwest over mountains and reach the northern outskirts of Moorpark, where a number of homes were evacuated. The blaze was pushing west Wednesday toward farmland and ranches in the community of Somis. Nash said the blaze grew overnight, when water and flame-retardant dropping aircraft are grounded. The fire had burned at least 8,500 acres but that figure was expected to grow as Santa Ana winds and the heat picked up during the day. Firefighters from Ventura, Los A
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said a 1,500-acre wildfire threatening homes in Moorpark started through “manure spontaneous combustion from a local ranch.” Officials did not disclose exactly where the fire started or how. But spontaneous manure fires are fairly common in farm communities, often occurring during conditions of extreme heat. Temperatures around where today’s fire started near Fillmore topped 100 degrees. In 2005, it took months to fully contain a manure fire that broke out at a feed lot near Lincoln, Neb. A man was killed earlier this year in Texas on a fire later blamed in part on animal waste placed in bags in a truck. More than 300 firefighters were on the scene, trying to prevent the blaze from hitting subdivisions in Moorpark. Evacuations have been ordered north of Broadway and east of Grimes Canyon, and in the Happy Camp Canyon and Shekell Road areas. Officials said numerous structures are threatened, as well as power lines and agricultural areas.
