Montecito in Santa Barbara on Thursday night was ablaze. A blaze driven by strong winds upto 50 to 70 mph entered the town. On its way it destroyed 800 acres, more than 80 homes and forced the people to leave their homes and evacuate. This is a celebrity neighborhood with Oprah Winfrey having a 42-acre estate there.
It started in the wealthy cold springs area and had the fire fighters struggling in vain to contain it. “I have so many concerns,” said Terry McElwee, operation chief for the Montecito Fire Department. “It’s just moving so fast right now . . . . We’re having trouble rounding up enough resources.”
The state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is doing its best with 3 helicopters dropping water and trying to help maintain and save whatever structures they could. The fire was relentless in its journey to Santa Barbara. “It looked like lava coming down a volcano,” Leslie Hollis Lopez said as he described the blaze.
The California Department of Forestry made evacuations mandatory for the area above California 192, between Cold Springs Road and Hot Springs Road.
Geri Ventura, a spokeswoman for the Montecito Fire Department, said that adequate arrangements had been made house the evacuees at San Marcos Senior High School in Santa Barbara, and students had been instructed to meet at the nearby Westmont College campus gym. The fire destroyed two buildings in the school but luckily no harm was done and no one injured. The evacuation centers were surprisingly quite vacant. People preferred to stay with friends or at hotels.
