‘Mountain Fire’ took devastating toll

CAMARILLO - Firefighters are beginning to get the upper hand on the Mountain Fire with the weather turning in their favor. The conflagration has burned across more than 32 square miles.

The fire started on Wednesday, near Balcolm Canyon Road in rural Somis. Later that day, it jumped more than 2 miles south across Highway 118 into Camarillo, and homes in Camarillo Heights and other neighborhoods started going up in flames.

On Thursday, there was "no significant growth" of the fire in or near Camarillo, said Nick Cleary, a battalion chief with the Ventura County Fire Department. Firefighters also stopped the progress of the flames before they reached Ventura, putting out a few spot fires in the bed of the Santa Clara River just east of the city.

The Mountain Fire had burned almost to the city of Moorpark in the east, nearly to the Ventura city limits in the west, and north to the Santa Clara River in Santa Paula.

Authorities have only begun assessing the damage, but they have already found 132 structures destroyed and another 88 damaged, Andy VanSciver, a spokesperson with the Ventura County Fire Department, said during a news conference on Thursday evening. Most of the structures were single-family homes, and the hardest-hit neighborhood was Camarillo Heights, he said.