Most California fire evacuees can go home

Approaching storm offers hope of dousing the flames

GOLETA, Calif. — Most of the thousands of people who fled a raging California wildfire north of Santa Barbara were told they could return home Tuesday as an approaching storm offered hope the flames would be doused.

About 4,000 of the nearly 5,500 evacuees were affected when authorities cut the size of the evacuation zone.

The blaze had blackened more than 6.5 square miles of the rugged Santa Ynez Mountains, but most of that acreage was scorched in its first hours Monday.

Fire commanders described a fierce battle that saved homes as the blaze consumed brush in an area that hadn’t burned in 29 years.

“We’ve had winds move up slope, down slope, across the slope,” Santa Barbara County fire Battalion Chief Anthony Stornetta said.

Helicopters dropped water on the fire during the night, and daylight allowed air tankers to drop long strips of fire retardant to box in the flames.

The fire began in Los Padres National Forest as winds gusted to 30 mph and higher.

Miryam Garcia, 21, and her mother, Norma Ramos, 47, fled their home as flames approached.

“I was just kind of praying that it didn’t get to our house,” Garcia said.

She and her mother stayed overnight with friends, and then went to a Red Cross shelter at a community center in Goleta, west of Santa Barbara.

Red Cross official Tony Briggs said 34 people stayed overnight at the shelter, where face masks were being handed out.

A 1990 wildfire in the same area destroyed more than 400 homes.