Strong winds force evacuations, tactical firefighter retreat
LOS ANGELES — The largest of the Southern California wildfires accelerated its spread into Santa Barbara County on Saturday, burning through the outskirts of the wealthy enclave of Montecito, home to many Hollywood stars.
The fire, which is now the third-largest in modern California history, was being driven by strong winds that were forecast to continue through Saturday. Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for large swaths of the county, including Montecito and some parts of the city of Santa Barbara. Downtown Santa Barbara remained under voluntary evacuation, although officials urged residents to leave.
Firefighters who had been trying to stop the progression of the blaze, known as the Thomas Fire, by removing brush, clearing land with bulldozers and dropping thousands of gallons of fire retardant from aircraft were forced to retreat Saturday as the fire advanced. Hundreds of homes are in the fire’s path.
In addition to its pricey real estate, Santa Barbara County is home to a $1.5 billion agricultural industry that produces strawberries, freshcut flowers and leafy greens.
“It’s moving faster than what we can possibly do to contain the fire,” said Joe Rosa, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.
In Santa Barbara, helicopters hovered in gray and smoky skies, and ashes speckled the ground everywhere, said Bonnie Marcus, who lives in an apartment in the eastern part of the city.
“I have never been in a war zone, but that is what it felt like,” Marcus said.
Her phone kept buzzing with alerts about the fire, she said. Most of the residents of her apartment complex had evacuated.
By late afternoon, she was on the road to a friend’s house near San Diego with personal photos, work files and clothes stashed in a bag.
More than 8,000 firefighters have been deployed, and hundreds had been ordered into a tactical retreat. “We are not going to put them in harm’s way to defend a building and have the chance of them not going home to their families at the end of this event,” Rosa said.
As of Saturday morning, the fire had burned through 259,000 acres and was 40 percent contained. Cal Fire has records of fires dating to 1932; the largest, the Cedar Fire in San Diego County in October 2003, burned 273,246 acres.
Winds that had been gusting up to 65 mph in the hills of Montecito were less severe by the afternoon, but they were still blowing strongly toward the coast, said Tom Fisher, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Oxnard, California, about 30 miles southeast of the fire. Gusts were still recorded at more than 45 mph, and wind patterns had caused humidity to drop, Fisher added.
“From a firefighter’s point of view, that’s still not good,” he said.
Among the evacuees were Candace Dauphinot and Richard Brumm, real estate investors who retired to Montecito in 2003 and since 2012 have been living in the Birnam Wood Golf Club, a gated community of about 140 ranch-style homes valued at $3 million and more.
Before even receiving an evacuation order, they gathered clothes and their dog, Kobe, and hit the road Friday.
“The air quality was beyond dreadful, and there was a lot of talk about the wind shifting,” Dauphinot said.
By Saturday, the whole golf community had been ordered to leave. Many residents, including the couple, found refuge at the Bacara, a resort in Goleta north of Santa Barbara.
From the terraces overlooking the Pacific Ocean, “we keep looking at the winds and the skies,” Dauphinot said.
The couple were hopeful the golf club would escape harm’s way, thanks to its location in the flatlands of Montecito, which have been spared as the fire chews through the dry vegetation in the hills and canyons.
The Thomas Fire, which broke out Dec. 4 in Ventura County, destroyed multimillion-dollar homes and other structures as well as avocado and lemon orchards there before advancing north up the coast to neighboring Santa Barbara County.
If the winds fueling the fire did not subside, experts said, it could turn into the worst in California’s history.