Posted on 11/13/2008 7:52:38 PM PST by Porterville
(Santa Barbara/ Montecito) UPDATED: All of Mountain Drive Ordered to Evacuate
Sycamore Canyon Fire Estimated at 20 Acres
Though still no official word yet from fire officials, KEYT is now reporting that all of Mountain Drive should evacuate, as of 6:50 p.m.
Chris Meagher reports that he spoke with Gayle Beebe, the president of Westmont. Some structures have caught fire, including the campus chapel. The students on the Westmont campus who have not evacuated yet are seeking refuge in the campus gym, which is made of concrete and is fireproof. The gym contains supplies for up to 1,200 people. According to Beebe, the fire started not war from the Westmont tea garden.
Because the fire may knock out power to neighborhoods around Santa Barbara, residents may want to sign up for the Indy Alert system, which will send text messages with all fire updated to cell phones. Sign up for Indy Alert here.
More to come as it becomes available. Independent.com will update with further evacuations.
As a rule of thumb, anything within about fifty miles of Los Angeles is covered by the helicopters for one or more of the local stations. They generally stream a raw feed from their copters on the net during the time they’re covering the event. Look up KCAL9, KTLA, KABC, KTTV, and NBC 4 L.A. The links are usually on the opening page.
Weather Underground provides very good localized real-time reporting of conditions near the bottom of the page for a given community. Humidity, wind speed, and wind direction are the primary weather-related determinants of fire behavior.
A third resource we frequently use is the CHP’s computer aided dispatch system, which is online for most of the state.
http://cad.chp.ca.gov/
There are also a number of web sites that offer live scanner feeds, though I didn’t find one for this fire. Scannerbuff.net is a good place to start looking.
Then, there are several Freepers who have some fire behavior experience, and you’ll usually find them on these threads, too.
Lot’sa fuel there, look at that flame height!
Picture is from last year
They’re refueling now, but will be probably be back. It’s looking pretty calm up there at the moment.
From NewsRaw, KNBC’s site, there’s a story on the fire, followed by one asking whether all this smoke and ash will have any impact on your car. Gotta keep those California priorities right.
Oprah’s dogs have been relocated to The Four Seasons Hotel. Oprah is good at adapting.
Latest reports say winds have died down so that is good news. They need to do as much as they can now before the winds pick up.
Press conference live now. No fatality reports.
For those of us who have relatives in Montecito or who grew up there, some of the comments posted here are disrespectul. This fire is still burning very close to relatives and losing a home is not a small deal.
Can we stick to having a community giving information about this fire to those of us who are looking for that via this source? And thank you to all who have posted live feeds, updates, etc since last night. It’s been extremely helpful.
Also just fyi..Oprah does not live anywhere near this fire. She lives in a completely different area of Montecito, that is and has never been under any threat.
Thanks.
The fire is four miles long. The fire chief said the next 12 hours will tell. Said that the fire is not even close to being under control.
a few homes still going up here and there
This must be your first California disaster thread....they are all like that!
>>>For those of us who have relatives in Montecito or who grew up there, some of the comments posted here are disrespectul
Lois Capps making sure to say this started on USFS land....
Really? I spent my first 14 years in Southern California (Santa Ana and Chino) so you are the one making an assumption now.
Thank you for your response. It is not my first disaster. Our house was involved in the 1977 Santa Barbara fire and of course there are many other crises that go on.
It’s not the time to one up eachother on our disaster history or where we live. No matter what community you live in - Montecito, Los Angeles, wherever, every single house matters. And every disaster no matter large or small is very hard for all invovled.
Thank you.
Crews battling large brush fire near Johnson Avenue and Bishop Street in SLO, officials going door-to-door advising residents to evacuate
From Westmont's website 326 students in Gym, fires out November 14th, 2008 8:00 am: There are no active fires on campus, no injuries, and everyone is safe. Wesmont has 326 students remaining in the Gym; those students with transportation have been released from campus because it is safe for them to travel on area roads. Westmont has lost eight structures, four buildings in Clark halls (F,G,M,S), the physics building, the old math building and the two quonset huts. The later three structures were scheduled for demolition soon. Fourteen faculty homes in Las Barrancas have burned; there is damage to trees, and wooded areas on campus, but much of the formal gardens remains intact.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.