Cal Fire will examine the Ventura County Fire Department’s response to a small wildfire that subsequently rekindled from the charred skeleton of a tractor — eventually growing into the destructive Mountain fire.
Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner announced Friday that his department has reached an agreement with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for an independent review of operations during the initial wildfire, which ignited and was contained in October 2024.
“Cal Fire is the nation’s leading expert on wildfire operations,” Gardner said. “No agency is better prepared to conduct this type of review and provide recommendations to enhance our future work.”
The initial blaze, dubbed the Balcom fire, was started on Oct. 30, 2024, by a tractor clearing brush in the Balcom Canyon area near the community of Somis, northeast of Camarillo.
Firefighters responded with a C-130 air tanker, dropped retardant and created containment lines around the fire. They declared the 1.8-acre fire out after about three hours.
A week later, powerful Santa Ana winds arrived, picked up some bits of rubber from one of the tractor’s scorched tires and carried them over the containment area into dry vegetation, bringing the fire back to life, according to investigators.
The subsequent blaze, the Mountain fire, burned nearly 20,000 acres and destroyed roughly 250 homes and structures in Camarillo Hills and nearby communities in western Ventura County.
Ventura County fire officials said they followed protocol when they left the Balcom fire — clearing containment lines, dropping retardant, and using a drone with an infrared camera to identify lingering heat.
Gardner previously said that more than 100 firefighters used hoses to put a “wet line” around the Balcom fire perimeter, while bulldozers cut away vegetation in its path and aircraft caked the ground with retardant. Then, firefighters with hand tools and infrared technology checked the area for heat.
The next day, officials said, crews flew a drone over the area and detected heat near the fire’s edge and the wheels of the tractor. Firefighters went to those areas and dug out smoldering material so it could cool, officials said.
Although the temperature around the tractor’s wheels registered at 300 degrees, Gardner said that’s not unusual for equipment caught in a fire.
Gardner said the department has since developed a post-fire policy and mop-up procedures after the Mountain fire. Ventura County fire officials implemented those changes for similar blazes later last year.
After a 2.3-acre brush fire ignited near Janss Road in Thousand Oaks last October, a drone team flew over the blaze’s footprint and identified hot spots to help firefighters mop up that same day. Crews continued to patrol overnight and again early the next day.
They returned two days later, with fire weather conditions forecast to increase, and scanned the fire footprint to ensure no residual heat remained.
The approach echoed one that firefighters took during the Kenneth fire near Calabasas in January 2025. Officials used a drone to scan the fire’s 1,000-acre footprint to locate hot spots daily for roughly a week amid increased fire weather risks.
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