VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. - Nearly a year after the Mountain Fire tore through Ventura County , investigators now say they have determined how it began.

The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office says the Mountain Fire — which burned nearly 20,000 acres and destroyed or damaged 369 structures in November 2024 — was caused by heated tire debris from a tractor involved in a smaller fire a week earlier.

Investigators determined that fragments from the tractor’s burned tires during the October 30 Balcom Fire became dislodged and later ignited unburned vegetation downwind, sparking the Mountain Fire on November 6.

The backstory:

According to the District Attorney’s Office, a tractor driver was clearing brush on October 30, 2024, on a hillside near Balcom Canyon Road and Bixby Road i

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