Ventura County Fire Department ready for increased fire danger
CAMARILLO, Calif. - Ventura County Fire was ready to go at a moment's notice as high winds increased fire danger on Monday.
Ventura County Fire staged 50 additional firefighters throughout the area.
“The idea being to keep small fires small. If, unfortunately, a fire gets too big, we want to immediately transition to a structure defense and preserve life and property. We are staging additional resources on the west side of the county in Camarillo, and then we are staging an additional strike team on the East County, East Simi Valley near Station 43. This will spread out resources; should we get a fire we can have a rapid response to that area," Michael Desforges from Ventura County Fire said.
Helicopters were also on standby and ready to deploy, including the Blackhawk.
“It is a larger, heavier aircraft so I am told by the pilots that it withstands heavier winds better than their typical bell helicopters right now," Desforges said.
The high winds were also bad news for restaurants that were forced to move outside during the pandemic.
“We have had nobody sit outside today. It is one of those winds where you don’t know where it is coming from and it just makes everything messy. Our only saving grace is that we do have 25% capacity inside, so that really helps us and we are still able to take care of our customers," said Israel Fuentes, General Manager for Spencer Makenzie’s.
