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    • Mountain Fire burns homes in Ventura County, California
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    Mountain Fire burns homes in Ventura County, California

    Pabio Posted on

    Staff reports
    | Ventura County Star

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    UPDATE: At a news conference Thursday evening, firefighters said damage assessment teams had so far found that 132 structures, mostly homes, had been destroyed and 88 damaged. Some 298 properties have been verified so far.

    ORIGINAL STORY:

    The mountain fire completely destroyed some houses in the Camarillo Heights neighborhood and elsewhere.

    But as of Thursday morning, officials declined to give even a rough estimate of the number of structures lost or damaged.

    At a news conference at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, Firefighter Andy VanSciver, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, said 10 damage assessment teams were being deployed to the countdown.

    “They’re going to go through every street and every property, do an analysis of every outbuilding and every house, and report back to us on it,” VanSciver told reporters Thursday. “It’s going to take time.”

    Firefighters want to “do things right the first time,” he said, and inform affected homeowners.

    Teams will go door to door to assess damage to structures.

    The fire broke out shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday in South Mountain, in the middle of a ranch in the Somis area. Powerful gusts of Santa Ana wind pushed it southwest toward the Saticoy Hills. By 11:30 a.m., he had crossed Highway 118 into the Camarillo Heights neighborhood, about 2.5 miles away, where large homes surround several golf courses in and around Camarillo.

    The fire grew to more than 14,000 acres Wednesday evening and spread north toward Santa Paula. Late Thursday morning it was mapped at 19,643 acres as new road closures and evacuation orders were announced.

    Ventura County Fire Capt. Trevor Johnson, chief of operations for the fire, said at the news conference that the damage assessment process was “tricky,” noting that crews had to check everything.

    “I don’t have a rough estimate or estimate on that, but they will be available in the next few days,” Johnson said.

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