It was a firefighter's nightmare. 80 mile an hour Santa Ana winds combined with a dry October and November combined to send a wildfire racing through Ventura County, destroying or damaging 370 structures.
KCLU provided live, on scene coverage from the middle of the Mountain. The fire raced through neighborhoods faster than authorities could issue evacuation warnings. We focused on getting essential information to listeners. This is a four minute capsule of some of our live reports during the first few critical hours of the fire.
What made it tougher is this was the day after election day. I was at the station doing live returns for four hours election night, and was then back four hours later to do live morning after local returns. We wrapped up election updates at 9 am....and the fire was reported right around the same time. I did live field reports for the next four days, until the threat eased.
