Santa Ana Winds

Pauline Minton was so worried about the winds that were rattling her house that she spent much of the morning with a bottle of heavy-duty hair spray before venturing outdoors. In front of a Target store in Simi Valley, Sheila Farmer had to wrap a six-foot scarf around her head to keep the hair out of her eyes and mouth. And at the Camarillo Springs Golf Course, Frank Garbarino had to keep pausing between practice swings to pat his silver hair back into place.

Santa Ana winds today will clear skies, clog sinuses, raise temperatures and create what may be the first perfect beach weekend of the year. Lifeguards in Huntington Beach said the sands already were crowded by Friday afternoon as temperatures there crept into the low 80s. Weather forecasters said it will only get better.

Santa Ana winds gusting to 40 m.p.h. swept across Ventura County on Monday, knocking down power lines, tripping burglar alarms, aggravating allergies and raising concern about brush fires. The hot desert winds also brought unusually clear skies to Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks by pushing pollution out to sea. In reverse of the usual pattern, Ventura was smoggier than Simi Valley on Monday, air quality officials said. The same is expected today.

Southern Californians had steeled themselves for gusty winds on Saturday, the same sort that spread last week's devastating wildfires, including the one in Orange County's Lemon Heights. But what they got was weak-to-moderate breezes with a forecast for more of the same through today. "It's been pretty weak Santa Ana winds," said Curtis Brack, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. "It didn't totally pan out the way it was looking."

Southern Californians were warned about more fires. What they got instead was some ice. An Alaskan storm system turned out to be chillier and hung around longer than expected Saturday, dropping some snow in the Frazier Park area in the Tehachapi Mountains and blocking the return of dry, powerful Santa Ana winds that had whipped up last week's destructive wildfires.

Fierce Santa Ana winds fanned a suspected arsonist's flame into a towering 900-acre brush fire that raged across rugged mountains south of this Ventura County city on Tuesday, destroying at least two mountaintop homes and forcing the evacuation of dozens of residents.

The expected return of strong Santa Ana winds beginning this afternoon had fire officials across Southern California racing to boost defenses and implement some of the lessons learned during last week's destructive brush fires. The National Weather Service on Thursday issued red flag warnings for much of the Southland through at least Sunday night.

The heat in Orange County hid behind low morning clouds Saturday, but temperatures will reach the 90s in the inland areas and the high 70s along the coast, providing one last gasp of warm summer weather over the next few days. "A Santa Ana condition is developing in the mountains and the desert and will bring temperatures to the low 90s," said James McCutcheon from WeatherData. "The beach areas such as Newport Beach and Huntington Beach will reach the high 70s and winds about 20 m.p.h."

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.

Santa Ana winds, gusting across the Southland's parched hillsides at up to 35 m.p.h., fanned wildfires near Fontana and Simi Valley that destroyed two buildings and blackened about 2,600 acres of brushland early Monday, but the blazes were contained before sundown. The largest of the fires started when a car on the shoulder of Interstate 15 burst into flames Sunday night.