Campgrounds Packed for the Holiday : Labor Day: Few spaces are left by Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, the CHP beefs up its patrols for the long weekend.

Ventura County campgrounds were nearly full and highway patrolmen were bracing Friday for the annual Labor Day exodus, historically the year’s deadliest three-day holiday.

From Lake Piru to the beaches of Ventura and Oxnard, end-of-summer vacationers staked out their grassy picnic spot or stretch of sand as forecasters predicted foggy mornings and sunny afternoons for the weekend.

The California Highway Patrol, meanwhile, planned to nearly double its number of officers in the field and urged motorists to prepare for delays along the Ventura Freeway, which each Labor Day is snarled with traffic from Rincon Point to Oxnard.

While promising to be on the watch for drunk drivers, neither the CHP nor the Ventura Police Department planned to set up sobriety checkpoints because of budget constraints, authorities said.

But the Oxnard Police Department planned to set one up Friday night on a section of the Pacific Coast Highway between Oxnard and the Los Angeles County line.

This 21-mile segment, considered one of the most dangerous roads statewide, has been designated as the Pacific Coast Highway Safety Corridor, where authorities plan to install curve warning signs and emergency call boxes, among other safety measures.

“I’ve lost count of the number of fatalities I’ve seen here,” said Simon Cavazos, a state parks ranger who has responded to as many as 20 fatal accidents since he began working at Point Mugu State Park about 15 years ago.

CHP Capt. Mike Porrazzo, the area commander for Ventura County, said two people were killed in Ventura County last year during the Labor Day weekend, and one of the deaths occurred on the Pacific Coast Highway.

“That’s one of the worst things about this time of the year--things like that,” Cavazos said.

Aside from Pacific Coast Highway, Porrazzo said the primary traffic problems occur at two choke points in Ventura, where the southbound Ventura Freeway drops from three to two lanes, and another area near Rincon Point.

“Once you slow (the traffic) down, you just don’t catch up, especially on a holiday like this,” he said.

As with the highways, campgrounds at the beaches and the mountains were either full or close to it by Friday afternoon, authorities said.

David Swaffar, a park official at Emma Wood State Beach, said he turned away as many as 100 would-be campers Friday because the area’s 61 spaces had been filled since Wednesday.

“It just seems like a lot of people didn’t bother to check with us before they left on their trips,” Swaffar said. He added that the moment a spot becomes available, another camper swoops in, typically within minutes.

McGrath State Beach was also filled to capacity, said state Lifeguard Casey Culp, as were Faria and Hobson county parks up the coast.

Inland, Ranger Tim Lawson at Lake Casitas said just five of the 460 camping spots remained vacant by midday Friday--and “they should be taken up any minute now.”

But at Lake Casitas’ alternate camping area, a large, grassy field without barbecue pits or picnic tables, about half of the 200 parking spaces were available, Lawson added.

At Lake Piru, park manager Doug West said all 238 campgrounds were full, but only about 50 of the 200 spaces in the adjacent field were taken up by Friday afternoon.

Due to a low-pressure system near Yuma, Ariz., fog and low clouds should move inland each night this weekend and are not expected to burn off until late morning, said Vladimir Ryshko of the National Weather Service. The highs should be in the 70s today and Sunday and could reach the 80s on Labor Day, he said.

Culp, the lifeguard at McGrath State Beach, said he had heard from counterparts in Huntington Beach that six-foot waves were hitting the southern shores, and similar waves, though probably a bit smaller, might make their way to Ventura County beaches by late tonight.

Friday’s weather, he added, began with fog, giving way to sunny skies about 11 a.m., followed by cooling winds in mid-afternoon.

“It makes for a pretty short day at the beach, doesn’t it?” he said. “Especially if you’ve driven a long way to get here.”

Holiday Weekend Monday marks the celebration of Labor Day, set aside to recognize labor’s contribution to the nation.Closed: All government offices, courts, banks, post offices, stock and commodity exchange, libraries and many businesses. Metrolink train service will not be offered.