Brush Fires

Fire season got off to an ominous start Tuesday as Santa Ana winds fueled five brush fires across Southern California, including a 6,000-acre blaze that forced hundreds of residents to flee their homes in Ventura County. The blazes erupted like clockwork on the first day of autumn, which typically marks the beginning of Santa Ana winds. Firefighters braced for a tough week ahead with more unusually strong winds and extreme heat forecast through the end of the week. "We're in triple-digit temperatures and single-digit humidities . . . and it's beginning with a bang here," said climatologist William Patzert of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

U.S. Forest Service officials underestimated the threat posed by the deadly Station fire and scaled back their attack on the blaze the night before it began to rage out of control, records and interviews show. In response to Times inquiries, officials for the Forest Service and Los Angeles County Fire Department said they probably will change their procedures so that the two agencies immediately stage a joint assault on any fire in the lower Angeles National Forest. Angeles Forest Fire Chief David Conklin said his staff was confident that the Station fire had been "fairly well contained" on the first day, so it decided that evening to order just three water-dropping helicopters to hit the blaze shortly after dawn on its second day -- down from five on Day One -- and prepared to go into mop-up mode with fewer firefighters on the ground.

The U.S. Forest Service has launched an internal inquiry into the agency's attack on the deadly Station fire, an operation that was scaled back the night before the blaze began to burn out of control. "With the significant loss of life, and impacts to the local community, we must determine the effectiveness of our efforts," Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell said in a written statement Wednesday. Tidwell said he would ask other agencies to participate in the review. But the Forest Service has declined to release detailed information about its response to the suspected arson fire, citing in part an ongoing homicide investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department into the deaths of two firefighters whose truck fell off a mountain road.

Fire crews gained the upper hand Wednesday against brush fires in Santa Barbara County and Los Angeles, authorities said. A Lompoc-area blaze charred 300 acres near Vandenberg Air Force Base before firefighters had it 50% contained Wednesday evening, according to Capt. David Sadecki of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. Meanwhile, in Griffith Park firefighters took about an hour to extinguish a five-acre blaze that was reported at 3:24 p.m., authorities said. A red-flag warning has been issued for mountain areas, where dry winds and low humidity were expected.

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. has agreed to pay the state $14.3 million to settle accusations that shoddy maintenance led to downed power lines, igniting the devastating 2007 brush fires in northern San Diego County that destroyed more than 1,500 homes.But the tentative settlement, announced Friday by the utility company and the Consumer Protection and Safety Division of the Public Utilities Commission, does not end the dispute over power line maintenance and its link to brush fires.

For the Rev. Greg Hughes, it was a case of a resolute community of faith rising up from the ashes. "We were burned down, but fired up as a people," said Hughes, senior pastor at Malibu Presbyterian Church. "We don't have a scarcity mind set, 'woe is us' or whatever. We're still out having fun, living life and finding joy in our faith." The 300-member congregation marked a milestone Sunday, as worshipers celebrated services in an interim sanctuary on the hill above the Pacific for the first time since their landmark sanctuary burned to the ground in the 2007 Malibu wildfires.

More than a month ago, the Station fire was fully contained by firefighters. But on Mt. Wilson, it doesn't look that way. Dave Jurasevich has looked out the window of the Mt. Wilson Observatory and spotted several plumes of smoke in recent weeks since the worst fire in Los Angeles County history was declared contained. "We don't see a lot of fire, but we see smoke -- and where there's smoke, there's fire, obviously," said Jurasevich, the superintendent at the observatory, which was evacuated twice during the Station fire.

Re " 'Stay and defend' will face scrutiny," Feb. 9 Just weeks after The Times wrote about California chiefs debating "stay and defend," possibly hundreds have died in Australia as a result of that very strategy. It is amazing to me that a few chiefs in California could forget one of the primary tenets of firefighting: Fire is unpredictable. Instead of fighting to increase fire protection and water supplies and advocating a moratorium on building in fire-prone areas, they chose to propose a "stay and defend" strategy for residents ill-prepared for it. In a way, they are lucky that Australia suffered such a catastrophe, because it probably saved that tragedy from occurring here, and it saved the California chiefs the shame of being responsible for a large loss of life.

A wind-driven fire in Palm Springs burned at least two homes and forced about 50 more to be evacuated before it was mostly contained Friday evening. No major injuries have been reported. Palm Springs Fire Battalion Chief Austin Smith said the fire had burned at least 40 acres by late Friday evening. Police Sgt. Mitch Spike said the fire started on the road to Palm Springs Tramway and was spreading south and east, into a residential neighborhood about two miles from downtown.

Nearly 580 Camp Pendleton Marines on Friday prepared for the kind of battle many of them least expected: fighting forest fires that have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres across the West. The Marines, mostly infantry units from the 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment, will deploy today near Mt. Tower, nine miles south of Ukiah, Ore., where they will help fight a wildfire that has already burned more than 45,000 acres and threatens homes, historic structures, wildlife habitat and a resort.