Sandy Fire scorches over 700 acres, destroys at least 1 home in Simi Valley
Evacuations were ordered Monday due to a fast-moving, wind-driven
brush fire that destroyed at least one home and threatened hundreds of
others in southern Simi Valley.
The Sandy Fire, which broke out around 10:50 a.m., originated in the
600 block of Sandy Avenue and has exploded to at least 720 acres as of 3
p.m. It’s 0% contained.
At least 500 firefighters are on the scene, including from Ventura
County, L.A. County and CAL FIRE. They’re actively engaged in structure
defense efforts, including dropping water and coordinating with ground
resources to try to bring control lines in and around the fire before it
spreads further into the thicker vegetation in the Simi Hills.
It appears as of 1 p.m., crews have managed to steer the majority of
this fire away from residential areas in Simi Valley and into unoccupied
brush.
There have been no reports of any injuries at this time.
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
Sky5 was over the Sandy Fire burning structures in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
Sky5 was over a home destroyed by the Sandy Fire in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
Flames are seen engulfing a structure in southern Simi Valley on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
Sky5 was over the Sandy Fire burning structures in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A firefighter hops over a fence while battling the Sandy Fire Monday, May 18, 2026, in Simi Valley, Calif. (AP ...
Sky5 was over the Sandy Fire burning structures in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
Crews are battling a brush fire in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
Sky5 was over the Sandy Fire burning structures in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
A brush fire threatens homes in Simi Valley on May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
Sky5 was over the Sandy Fire burning structures in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
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Sky5 was over the Sandy Fire burning structures in Simi Valley, Calif. on Monday, May 18, 2026. (KTLA)
Sky5 has been over the scene since 11 a.m., where the fire could be
seen spreading quickly, burning several structures and sending a large
plume of grey smoke into the air.
At least two structures, including one home, and several vehicles were seen burning on Trickling Brook Court off Rambling Road.
The Ventura County Incident Information Line hotline has
been activated. For any questions related to evacuations and sheltering
please call 805-465-6650.
Evacuations
Evacuation orders have been issued for parts of Simi Valley, and warnings were extended into the Thousand Oaks area.
Evacuation Orders:
Simi Valley 32, Simi Valley 33, Simi Valley 34, Simi Valley 35
Evacuation Warning:
Simi Valley 31, TOAKS 6, TOAKS 7
A map showing Sandy Fire evacuation zones in Simi Valley is pictured. (CAL FIRE)
You can see updated evacuation orders and warnings here.
Evacuation Points:
Temporary evacuation point: Rancho Santa Susana Community Park, located at 5005 Los Angeles Avenue.
Large animal shelter for horses and livestock: Ventura County Fairgrounds at 10 E Harbor Blvd.
Small animals: Simi Valley Animal Shelter, located
at 670 W Los Angeles Avenue in Simi Valley; Camarillo Animal Shelter,
located at 600 Aviation Drive in Camarillo
Schools: It appears winds are moving the fire
away from the are where many schools are located. Simi Valley Unified
released a statement saying all students are safe but are being kept
indoors due to poor air quality.
Sky5’s Rich Pricket saw a long line of parents reportedly waiting to
pick up their children at Hillside Middle School at 12:45 p.m. The
school is not in the direct path of the fire.
Crestview Elementary and Mountain View Elementary schools have been evacuated to Simi Valley High School, which remains open.
Wind Advisory
The weather is a big factor in this fire. A Wind Advisory that was in
effect for the Santa Susana Mountains, bordering Simi Valley, and other
parts of Ventura County expired at 3 p.m.
KTLA meteorologist Olga Ospina said the Santa Ana winds have died down a bit since the fire first broke out.
Winds in Simi Valley were at a sustained 11 mph as of 2 p.m., with
gusts up to 19 mph. Humidity levels are low at 15% with temperatures at
80 degrees.
Winds will continue to weaken, especially as we move into evening hours.
Those winds are shifting from the southwest in areas like Simi Valley.
As we head into Tuesday, offshore winds will once again be present
but are expected to be below advisory level and not as strong as the
winds on Monday.
Neighbors describe fire
KTLA’s Sara Welch was on Sandy Court Monday afternoon, just below
where the fire started. The burn scar could be seen there, with the
plume of smoke still visible over the ridge.
She spoke to a neighbor who called in the fire, Anthony. He said he
spotted the smoke puffing up and, within 30 seconds, it became engulfed
and he called 9-1-1.
“I gotta give kudos to the fire department. They were here faster than I don’t know what,” he said.
Andrew Dowd with Ventura County Fire says the most important thing
residents in the area can do right now is to heed evacuation orders and
warnings from fire officials.
He advises residents to “have a plan in advance of a fire so that you
know what you’re going to do when you need to evacuate, and when that
evacuation order is given, to follow it.”
Investigators are on the scene near the fire’s reported origin at
Sandy Avenue Monday afternoon to determine what could have started this
fire.
Neighbors said they saw a tractor in the area doing brush clearing in
the windy conditions before the fire broke out, which was also captured
on Ring camera video. It’s unknown whether that had anything to do with
the fire.
This is a breaking news story; stay with KTLA 5 for updates.
Other SoCal brush fires
The Sandy Fire came as other fires broke out in Southern California amid windy conditions.
Sky Fire (Riverside County): 67600 block of Skyview
Dr. in the community of Ribbonwood. The forward rate of spread was
stopped at 4 acres at 2:22 p.m.
Cajon Incident (San Bernardino County): Near Cajon Boulevard and Keenbrook Road near the 15 Freeway in Cajon. Forward progress stopped at 5 acres as of 2:30 p.m.
If you grew up with me in the 1950s there were always children and young people dying from all sorts of things around you then. Either their parents didn't believe in doctors and so they died or they died in cars with no seat belts being thrown from those cars in an accident or they died from things that poisoned them or they died because they didn't know what they were doing in one way or another. So, death was all around me from birth to about age 20 or 25 especially. young men were drafted and sent to Viet nam in the 1960s and early 1970s and often were dead within a week or two (50,000 of them). Then there were people who volunteered and they also often were dead soon too.
So, the point is that death was much more present and much more real when I grew up in the 1950s. It was all around me all the time.
Now there is much less death but people fear it more now. I think in the 1950s people welcomed death more because people were more miserable than now. But now, there is more fear of death but actually much less death in general.
Why is this?
People were relatively speaking much more ignorant when I grew up in the 1950s than now. People died quite easily and had been dying a lot for thousands of years.
It's only since about the 1970s that this began to change as more people went to college and more people actually figured out how NOT to die before age 30.
So, the present world we live in did not exist at all in the 1950s when people were so much more ignorant and superstitious and just silly in what people believed more.
And in the 1950s people were much more racist than now but not just in a black and white way but towards ANYONE the slightest bit different.
For example, even with my newspaper route I could be pulled off my bicycle and beaten up or killed just in my own neighborhood by other kids because I was on their turf and not on my same street then. So, just delivering newspapers on my bicycle I wasn't necessarily safe doing this. I can even remember that dogs often were loose on the streets then a lot and when you rode your bicycle past one of these dogs it might try to attack you. So, one large black dog attacked me on my bicycle and grabbed my right pant leg and I was peddling as fast as I could to not die so I kicked as hard as I could with my right heel to make the dog let go of my pantleg before I crashed and maybe died. The dog howled in pain but let go of my pantleg so I could live to deliver newspapers another day. I was 10 years old then.
However, I would have concerns about publishing ANYTHING that was totally composed by AI.
At least when I create a question for AI it is something I can look at and read to see if it sounds right and is likely accurate in what it says. However, then if you published an AI book you might never know whether some way AI conveys information might be fatal to some or one reader along the way.
This is the main problem of AI written books. Liability leading to possibly fatalities of readers of those books.
Also, an AI book might send a younger person off on a totally bad idea which has no basis in physical reality at all.
So potentially sending a young person with no real knowledge of the physical world and how it actually operates in real time could send this young person in literally any direction or to their deaths.
So, this is why reading an AI book is so much "Caveat Emptor" or "Let the Buyer Beware".
I think what I worry about is when books might be published (or already are) that are written by AI and people are not told they are written by AI. This could really be a problem regarding the physical or mental survival of some human beings young or old or whatever age they might be.
It once again brings to mind the old Computer adage for computer programmers in the 1960s:
"Garbage in Garbage out" which basically means you cannot get a good result unless you have good information programmed correctly in the first place.
So, I worry about Garbage in Garbage out in relation to AI now too because the same basic rule applies to AI as well.
The species grows 1 to 12 metres (3 to 39 ft) tall, scrambling over other plants with their spiky thorns. They are evergreen where rainfall occurs all year, or deciduous if there is a dry season. The leaves are alternate, simple ovate-acuminate, 4–13 cm (1.6–5.1 in) long and 2–6 cm (0.79–2.4 in) broad. The actual flower of the plant is small and generally white, but each cluster of three flowers is surrounded by three or six bracts with the bright colours associated with the plant, including pink, magenta, purple, red, orange, white, or yellow. Bougainvillea glabra is sometimes called "paper flower" because its bracts are thin and papery. The fruit is a narrow five-lobed achene.
Twenty years after Commerçon's description, it was first published as 'Buginvillæa' in Genera Plantarum by A. L. de Jussieu in 1789.[4] The genus was subsequently spelled in several ways until it was finally established as "Bougainvillea" in the Index Kewensis in the 1930s. Originally, B. spectabilis and B. glabra
were undifferentiated until the mid-1980s when botanists classified
them as distinct species. In the early 19th century, these two species
were the first to be introduced into Europe, and soon nurseries in
France and Britain sold these varieties in Australia and throughout
their former colonies. Meanwhile, Kew Gardens
distributed plants it had propagated to British colonies throughout the
world. Soon thereafter, a crimson specimen in Cartagena, Colombia was
added to the genus descriptions. Originally thought to be a distinct
species, it was named B. buttiana in honor of the European who first encountered it. However, later studies classified it as a natural hybrid of a variety of B. glabra and possibly B. peruviana—a
"local pink bougainvillea" from Peru. Natural hybrids were soon found
to be common occurrences all over the world. For instance, around the
1930s, when the three species were grown together, many hybrid crosses
were produced almost spontaneously in East Africa, India, the Canary
Islands, Australia, North America, and the Philippines.[citation needed]
Cultivation and uses
A "stick" of pink bougainvilleaBougainvillea sp. in Brazil
Although it is frost-sensitive and hardy in USDA Hardiness Zones
9b and 10, bougainvillea can be used as a houseplant or hanging basket
in cooler climates. In the landscape, it makes an excellent hot season
plant, and its drought tolerance makes it ideal for warm climates
year-round. Its high salt tolerance makes it a natural choice for color
in coastal regions. It can be pruned into a standard, but is also grown
along fence lines, on walls, in containers and hanging baskets, and as a
hedge or an accent plant. Its long arching thorny branches bear
heart-shaped leaves and masses of papery bracts in white, pink, orange,
purple, and burgundy. Many cultivars, including double-flowered and
variegated, are available.[citation needed]
Many bougainvillea today are the result of interbreeding among
only three out of the eighteen South American species recognized by
botanists. There are over 300 varieties of bougainvillea. Because many
of the hybrids have been crossed over several generations, it is
difficult to identify their respective origins. Natural mutations seem
to occur spontaneously throughout the world; wherever large numbers of
plants are being produced, bud-sports
will occur. This had led to multiple names for the same cultivar (or
variety) and has added to the confusion over the names of bougainvillea
cultivars.[citation needed]
The growth rate of bougainvillea varies from slow to rapid,
depending on the variety. They tend to flower all year round in
equatorial regions. Elsewhere, they are seasonal, with bloom cycles
typically four to six weeks. Bougainvillea grow best in dry soil, in
very bright full sun and with frequent fertilisation; but they require
little water once established, and in fact will not flourish if
over-watered. They can be easily propagated via tip cuttings.[7]
Bougainvillea is also a very attractive genus for Bonsai
enthusiasts, due to their ease of training and their radiant flowering
during the spring.[8] They can be kept as indoor houseplants in temperate regions and kept small by bonsai techniques.
Native to South America, bougainvillea carry several names in the different regions where they are present. Apart from Rioplatense Spanishsanta-rita, Colombian Spanishveranera, Peruvian Spanishpapelillo, Caribbean Spanishtrinitaria, it may be variously named primavera, três-marias, sempre-lustrosa, santa-rita, ceboleiro, roseiro, roseta, riso, pataguinha, pau-de-roseira and flor-de-papel in Brazilian Portuguese. Nevertheless, buganvília[buɡɐ̃ˈviʎ̟ɐ] in Portuguese and buganvilia[buɣamˈbilja]
in Spanish are the most common names accepted by people of the regions
where these languages are spoken but it is an introduced plant.[citation needed]
As of 2010, Bougainvillea is generally placed in the Bougainvilleeae tribe (containing three genera) of the Nyctaginaceae family with Pisonieae being a sister tribe (containing four genera):
"Genus: Bougainvillea Comm. ex Juss". Germplasm Resources Information Network. United States Department of Agriculture. 2010-07-07. Retrieved 2010-12-14.
Roskov Y., Ower G.,
Orrell T., Nicolson D., Bailly N., Kirk P.M., Bourgoin T., DeWalt R.E.,
Decock W., van Nieukerken E.J., Penev L. (eds.) (2020). Species 2000
& ITIS Catalogue of Life, 2020-12-01. Digital resource at
www.catalogueoflife.org. Species 2000: Naturalis, Leiden, the
Netherlands. ISSN 2405-8858.
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