Mountain Fire (Camarillo) After-Action Review

VCSO Emergency Services damage map w/h drone imagery

On November 6, 2024, the Mountain Fire, a fast-moving brushfire, tore through Somis and Camarillo, CA, destroying over 243 homes and damaging 127 others. While by acreage the fire burned largely wildlands and agricultural areas, the worst losses were homes in the Camarillo Hills.

This is the second time in a decade that a major wind-driven fire has traveled miles in the span of a few hours or less—in this case, 5 miles in about an hour, driven by 55 MPH gusts out of the northwest. In 2017, the Thomas Fire ripped through the county about ten miles to the north, becoming one of California’s largest, longest, and most destructive fires.

Camarillo got lucky because the wind was from the northwest, blowing west-southwest instead of from the north, which would have driven it into the city. The impact was where it did occur—in the middle of the Camarillo Hills rather than on the eastern flank (Somis). The National Weather Service issued a 'particularly dangerous situation' red flag warning for Los Angeles on November 6-7, the first since 2020.

With the fire spotting 2 miles ahead of itself, there was a very real danger of it impacting the suburbs. I can’t highlight this enough: the spread of the fire ahead of the fire front was enough that the suburbs of Camarillo were under direct threat for a bit. It was well within the realm of possibility that everything north of Las Posas could have been subjected to spot fires in the tract homes from W. Las Posas to N. Ponderosa.

Firefighters were overtaken by events, a common theme in wind-driven fires. They could not get enough resources in place fast enough to do structure protection. The initial response became lifesaving and evacuations, leaving the spread of the fire at the mercy of the wind and topography. Luckily, the fire ran into dense, modern neighborhoods with irrigated landscaping and fire-resistant homes. The fire ran out of highly receptive brush-covered hills and choked arroyos that would help feed and spread it. Even so, its reach deep into the hillside homes was bad enough.

Fires will often follow vegetated paths that ingress through neighborhoods, like creeks, arroyos, gullies, or greenbelts. So, while a neighborhood might not be directly adjacent to wildlands, one or two streets over could be a brush-choked drainage that spreads the fire well beyond the limits of the tract.

Again, we see that the fire moved faster than proper notifications. Ideally, the public should have a few hours to get ready and pack up, but not in many of these kinds of fires. When deputies and fire crews arrive to evacuate, you are already likely in mortal danger. Those who were paying attention to the weather and scanner traffic might have had an extra hour to a half-hour to pack. The rest were grabbing go-bags (if they had them), critical last-minute items, and running for their lives.

You are your own warning. Be prepared to evacuate without being told to by the authorities. If you see danger on the horizon—be it smoke, flooding, or zombies—use your own judgment and intuition. Leave early if you can; don’t be caught in the panicked horde that is leaving when the fire is at the door.

Awareness was key. The fire originated about six miles from where the homes were impacted but covered most of that distance in about two hours. For those who lost homes, they had at most four hours from the time the fire began to when it became too dangerous to stay.

The Watch Duty app gives excellent first notice of fires far in advance of official announcements. Remember, official announcements are most likely to come first in the form of police/fire on the street with sirens and PA announcements; electronic alerts come more slowly.

Once you’ve been alerted, assess the threat. In this case, extreme winds blowing directly toward a populated area is one point. Ordinarily, the sheer distance of irrigated orchards and fields in between would mitigate against an immediate concern. Yet from monitoring fire department radio traffic, it was clear that the fire was exploding, negating that. Once the firefighters began radioing probable impact to the Camarillo Heights area, the danger to the city was immediate.

Knowing what direction the wind is blowing and at what speed allows you to gauge factors like fire spread and your risk. You also need to be able to orient yourself on a map so you can make estimates based on the fire’s origin, its current location, and your location. Simple triangulation combined with spot reports or actual visual confirmation can tell you if you’re at risk or not. In this case, once the fire crested the hill, barring any wind shifts, the major fire front wasn’t going to enter the city.

My family was lucky because we are deep inside the city, and that part of town (unlike my people in Thousand Oaks) is not cut through with open spaces or vegetated arroyos. Thousand Oaks is different, where a tract of homes might be bordered by a very flammable area. This has caused some worry for friends/family up there some years ago and in some areas created inroads for fires to penetrate “safe” areas.

If you are inside or under the smoke, particularly with large pieces of burned material falling (not just white ash), you are in its path. Any flaming debris indicates immediate danger as you are within the ember cast. Flying embers can start spot fires well in advance of the main body of flames. These blow into soffits, eaves, vents, etc., and start structure fires. Embers landing in trees or landscaping help the fire spread.

For situational awareness, aerial shots from TV news helicopters are great for incident mapping and threat assessment. This is doubly so if you are physically inside the smoke and can’t see anything other than brown sky. Without aerial shots, get out from underneath the smoke, get photos from high points, drones, and from other perspectives around the region.

The power or Internet may go out, meaning you will not get security system or camera notifications. You won’t be getting security notifications or have the ability to remotely check conditions at home. This comes back to using scanners to hear emergency chatter directly, not waiting on official notifications. On-scene reports can take much longer to filter into official warnings rather than listening to observations and using your judgment.

Write down the address/cross-streets of incidents as you hear them. This can help you prepare a map to track spread and gauge risk. It’s better if you have someone out of danger doing this for you. I was listening to both sheriff and fire department traffic, and that was tricky to do.

Paying attention to two scanners is a lot of work. It’s very difficult to listen to two people talking at the same time and also try to hear through or over static. Even listening to one while trying to evacuate and communicate is hard, especially if you are unfamiliar with the geography or emergency responders’ terminology. You really would benefit from having someone in a safe location handling the monitoring and pushing information via phone, group chat, or radio to all parties.

If you are a first responder or using radios to communicate, watch your microphone. When critical radio traffic is coming fast and furious, you don’t want to be the guy with an open mic.

Radio played little part for the average citizen. Cell service was busy and overloaded but available. While congestion could have been overcome with ham/GMRS use for families to coordinate, there really was no need for radio comms outside of the emergency services. Given the terrain challenges, HTs (portable radios) would have struggled, and mobile (vehicle) radios and home base stations on VHF/UHF would have been best, if used. You could hear lots of broken and staticky traffic from deputies/fire in the hills. Even a little bit of terrain and distance can frustrate low-power radios.

I’ve been harsh on bug-out bags before. A camping-oriented bag would have been of no help here. There were Red Cross shelters and plenty of hotels to go to. A bag with important documents, photocopies, medications, and enough clothes, chargers, and toiletries to survive a week in a hotel before you can buy new stuff would be sufficient. Your mileage may vary.

My family’s bug-out plans are weak since we plan to “bug out” to my mom’s place in Camarillo. For the most part, it faces no fire or flood hazard, and the earthquake damage danger is low. Plus, it’s an extremely safe, mostly homogenous, middle-class community. Unless the house burns down from inside (or a plane crashes on it), the risk of being houseless is low. But spot fires burning two miles ahead have been a wake-up call. However unlikely, it is possible—just like those people in North Carolina never thought their placid, tiny stream would become a torrent or a wall of water would come washing down a dry hillside.