Linda Elmo was waiting outside Padre Serra Parish in Camarillo for Ventura County emergency officials to bring a wheelchair for her to get to the building, an evacuation center amid the ferocious Mountain fire.
The 75-year-old had watched as the winds picked up that morning and was listening to the news, but she didn’t receive notice about a wildfire evacuation until a firefighter knocked on the door and told her and her husband to “go, go, go!’”
“It happened so fast,” Elmo said. The blaze “was in this canyon by the house in the backyard.”
The Mountain fire exploded into Moorpark and Camarillo on Wednesday fueled by dangerously high wind and dry conditions. The fire swept into hillside neighborhoods, forcing residents to flee and burning numerous homes. There were reports of some people trapped.
The high winds mean retardant-dropping airplanes were initially unable to aid in the firefighting effort, the department said. The fire had hopped the 118 Freeway and was marching into Camarillo Heights. As a result, the California Highway Patrol closed the freeway between Oxnard and Camarillo.
The fire started amid a Santa Ana wind event that was generating 70- to 80-mph wind gusts in some parts of Los Angeles County on Wednesday, triggering power outages, traffic concerns and warnings of fire risk.
There were dramatic moments through the morning and afternoon.
Ventura County sheriff’s deputies rushed older Moorpark residents in wheelchairs down steep driveways and out of homes, amid orange haze and battered by wind gusts, showed.
Deputies lifted those who could not walk into police cars and rushed them away from encroaching flames just coming into view.
Elmo said she had left half of the medication that she needed at home.
“I don’t have the charges for my oxygen,” she added. Elmo uses an Inogen portable oxygen machine. “I’ll deal with it,” she said.
She has a friend trying to pick up more medicine at the pharmacy for her but she hopes the Red Cross might also have some of the medication she needs.
Emilia Lois said the day had been “kind of a blur.” Her home sits on Ridgecrest Lane, close to the fire’s origin.
The 45-year-old mother of two evacuated around 9:30 a.m. Her husband was away on business. She said she watched as wildfire smoke billowed down her street.
After getting an alert on her phone, Lois rushed to pack some belongings and pick up her children, 11 and 14 years old, from school, which not long after was canceled.
“They know what’s happening, and they’re pretty upset,” she said, “but I keep trying to remind them that we’re alive, we’re here, we are safe.”
