Hope everybody’s OK…
Easternpacific and Sally might be inside the mandatory evac zone.
Skip?
http://crisiswire.com/…/santa-barbara-fires
We’re right on the fringe, but still here. It was ripping pretty good up until now as the winds settled down and the ocean influence is returning a bit. We’ve got all the boards loaded up and headed down hill…
I’m off to sleep, but will update tomorrow.
Hope you guys are alright, my kiwi mate and his SB wife are on the edge of their seats…
Good wishes…
Initially, it raged up and down Cold Springs Canyon. It was pretty spectacular. Then seemed to die a bit. Later, around 9 o’clock it roared through Barker Pass.
Right now, from my vantage point on top of the Mesa, it looks like its still glowing a bit behind Mission Ridge, and there’s some isolated flames up by Eucalyptus Hill. The sundowner’s stopped and the wind’s a bit more onshore. The helicopters are doing night drops. Radical- watching them swoop over the ridges.
and may all the saints
preserve the rightous
yard cleaners
and stewards
of the lands.
…ambrose…
may the fires
though close
jump yours
and spare the
acumulations
My buddy Cory lost his place, Skip, Kims old pad on Coyote went up too.
I was there for the last big one, that jumped 6 lanes of fwy that was last ditch “firebreak” before Hope Ranch. No rhyme or reason. Drove through after, nice rectangular suburban neighborhood, two houses unscathed, next nothing but chimney left, next two fine but in front of second was what was once an car, now unrecognizable slag heap. Like some SciFi monster had gone thru w/ atomic atomizer gun and just sort or randomly reduced this and that to constituent atoms. Hats off to those firefighter folks! Definitely a different bread, sort of like BIG wave riders only even more close to the death part of life and death.
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My buddy Cory lost his place, Skip, Kims old pad on Coyote went up too.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sbfire14-2008nov14-pg,0,5936188.photogallery?index=10
picture #9 is my friend Seans place. For a while there was a 70mph swath of down slope wind driven fire that was a few miles wide. Somehow, the heli pilots flew all night!! Aided by the full moon, it was radical.
Near our house, a friend sent this as they were leaving.
Again already? I was home for the Gap fire and was evacuated on the 4th of July (my parents werent too happy to see me pack my surfboards first haha). Good luck with all the ups and downs of dealing with a fire like this and I hope you and your family and friends remain safe.
Skip #2 is Kims old house, that whole complex of homes went up, bummer lots of good times up there.
I’m sincerely sorry about the people who lost their homes. It has to be devastating. I hope nobody gets hurt. More warm weather is on the way, too. Fire fighters are radical. We had them from all over the country staying in our town during last summers Basin Fire. We had Apaches from the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona and we even had Samoans here helping out. We’re almost out of the ‘fire season’ so hang on everyone. Rattlesnake canyon is beautiful and looks like a great place to find rattlers! Good luck everyone. Mike
Scary situation…Painted Cave was pretty freaky too as it marched on down to Hope Ranch across the highway…When you have 50mph winds, anything can happen.
Anyone here have stories about skating Tea Bowls (where the fire apparently started)? I remember skating it back in the day and, though all of this is terrible news…the memories of Tea Bowls are much welcome…Definitely a unique socal experience that made my time in SB some of the best years of my life…
Many lovely memories hanging in SB and cruising up in the hills…it’s beautiful country. Sympathies to those who have lost their homes and I hope everyone stays safe.
Steve
yeah I remember going down to the beach with my parents when I was about four and having a picnic the evening that painted cave happened… from Goleta beach we watched the fire go from the top of the mountain to the bottom in the time it took us to eat dinner, talk about scary sht. that is prob one of my earliest memories. Thank god this wasnt worse, if that fire had made it down to the eastside…
The Yorba Linda/Anaheim Hills,Ca. firestorm :
Esparanza High School is caddy corner from my housing complex .
It was being used as the evac. center for the residents up the hill.
By 1500hrs it was evacuated/moved to Katella High School on the other side of the hill due to the fire’s rapid movement in the school’s direction.
At this point voluntary evac. was put into place,w/ phone messages pending.
I was trying to get into my neighborhood from the SHF,and by alot of devation,knowledge,and the grace of God…I made it home @ the 1745hrs.
Every movement counted and time was on a count down.
1800hrs…The winds shifted from out of the northeast to the northwest.
2300hrs…I could watch the flames from my back door and witnessed a half dozen large explosions.
Herb
Good to hear people are safe, sorry to hear about the losses.
After all these fires over the last year or so, is there anything else left to burn??
Puts up a very strong case for controlled burns…
I dunno about controlled burns, but it does make you think about your choice of materials of construction.
Had to relate this to Swaylock’s somehow.
there have been a few cases where controlled burns turned in to
catastrophic fires.
the seasonal fires were here before we came and will remain long
after we leave.
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After all these fires over the last year or so, is there anything else left to burn??
Puts up a very strong case for controlled burns…
The problem with this area, and most of socal is that it is meant to burn. Check out this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapparal That and the fact that in Montecito and the Santa Barbara foothills there are a lot of large estates, not “tract-type” housing. So in between each estate the brush is still all there for the most part. If anybody drives through Montecito or the foothillls of SB you will see what I mean. They do controlled burns on the other side of the mountain basically just to regenerate farm land, I dont think they do it in the national forest around there, and I dont blame them. Controlled burns in these hills/mountains would be nuts.
My parents live at the west end of Goleta, straight down the mountain from where the Gap fire started this summer. I would argue that the main reason our house survived the summer is that Goleta has a nice buffer of citrus orchards between the mountains and residential area. The fire burned right down to the orchards, and the orchards provided the THOUSANDS of firefighters a natural fireline to help stop the thing. Now Goleta has an additional buffer of freshly burrned land, but in two years it will be just as flammable as it was before I am sure…
To relate this to swaylocks: I was fortunate enough to spend this past summer in Goleta at my parents house. When we got evacuated on the 4th of July, the first thing I packed were my surfboards. My dad gave me a really hard time about that one.
If there are any firefighters out there on sways, I cannot praise what you do enough.