Jesusita Fire: update Friday evening

Please take with a large grain of salt headlines like this one at CBS.com: "Thousands more flee Calif. blaze."

A headline is meant to be a grabber, not tell the truth of a story. CBS's would have you believe that from Santa Barbara there is a mass exodus of panicked citizens, something out of Independence Day.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Yes, there have been evacuations mandated by the authorities. And in addition there are residential areas that are on evacuation warning. [See the map linked at the end of the post.] The authorities keep us remarkably well-informed, and in turn they continuously praise the cooperation of Santa Barbara's citizens and the orderliness of the evacuations. "Flee" is hardly a word they or I would use. But then, it isn't my job, or theirs, to write headlines for CBS.

I do not mean to trivialize the fire. Quite the contrary. It is a massive event. Many people have indeed lost their homes and thousands of others have been displaced and for the duration are bunking with friends elsewhere in town, or at the shelter facilities set up by the Red Cross, or checking into hotels.

There is, nevertheless, a great spirit in this town -- mutual aid, humor, and even a cheerfully fatalistic attitude on the part of people who know that coping with a snake is the price you pay to live in Eden.

This is what I wrote in an e-mail a little while ago to Chiaro, in answer to her generous concern for us. I hope it will help those of you reading this who don't "know the territory" to understand the situation a little bit better. (Links to maps, etc., are at the end of the post.)

---

Dear Chiaro --

I hurry to tell you that we're fine and safe.

The maps and TV shots don't really convey the geography or geometry of the fire. The telephoto lenses foreshorten the vistas, and in fact things are really farther away than they look. (Night shots are the worst culprits. Even one's own sightings at night are deceptive.) The maps also are a bit misleading, in that there are many changes in terrain, growth of brush and flowers and agriculture and trees, elevation, etc. that don't show up on a flat map but that have a substantial, but highly localized, effect on the way a fire works.

Fire has crossed the highway [Hwy. 101] only once, during what was called the Painted Cave fire, and that was twenty years ago. (It was stopped only a half-mile from where I sit and write this. My neighbors are all veterans of that experience, and are a comfort.)

Since then many mitigation plans (brush clearing, road widening, etc.) have been put into effect. The fire services are far more technologically advanced in terms of their planning and communications. Weather and wind predictions are in place earlier and are more accurate. The air support is whiz-bang. (The DC-10 [known as Tanker 910] 12,000 gallon drops of bright-red PHOS-CHeK are amazing.)

Per the county website, this is the equipment in play:

· 2,335 personnel on scene: 246 engines, 62 crews
· 14 air tankers and 15 helicopters [the tankers drop PHOS-CHeK, mostly to help create fire breaks; the helicopters drop water on hot spots with surgical precision]

And the police have made more than 100,000 reverse-911 calls!

The weather today has been a blessing. They expect the sundowners to kick up again, but less intensely and for a shorter time than last night. But the winds were light all day, and coming mostly from the ocean, which brings lower temperatures and higher humidity. This afternoon there was a temperature reading that was thirty degrees cooler than yesterday at the same time. (So much for seasons!!!) And 68% humidity, rather than something under 20%. If these favorable conditions hold in the next couple of days -- and they are expected to -- the fire should be fully contained by the beginning of next week.

That said, last night was quite scary. We decided to pack up and be prepared in case an evacuation warning or mandatory evacuation came our way [in the middle of the night]. We had our rendez-vous plan in effect and cell phones charged. Pat and Adam finally went to sleep, but I couldn't shut my eyes until daylight. The sundowners had created new and in some cases raging fires up in the hills. It was very dramatic. Finally the winds died down, the sun started to come up, and I knew we were OK. Pat and Adam let me sleep in till noon!

I should point out that the evacuation zones are not necessarily on fire (another fact that makes the maps a little misleading and scarier for people who aren't here). In fact, it appears that no property has been lost there has been no fire below Foothill Road/Cathedral Oaks Road [Hwy. 192].
[See the overlay map, linked below.]

The real at-risk areas are up in the hills. However, it takes time to move thousands of people, so with the warnings and mandatory evacuation zones, the authorities are taking an excess of caution in case new spot fires occur as embers are blown down and around. And by having these zones in place, firefighters and support crews can move much more easily and navigate where they need to go without having to deal with civilian traffic. With hundreds of police and fire vehicles on the move, this is an obvious necessity.

The local TV station is terrific -- they've been on non-stop since the damned thing started -- and the authorities hold several press conferences a day and make themselves generally available. They maintain information kiosks spotted around town. The public is very very very well-informed, and that is a crucial comfort factor.

Trader Joe's today was handing each customer a tulip at checkout -- a very Santa Barbara gesture. This is a very caring community, and it's always in evidence when there's an emergency. Even with all this michigas, I really wouldn't want to live anyplace else!

Love,

--Ellen

Map with overlay, as of 7 a.m. May 8.

Map without overlay (be sure to see the "terrain" view)

Vivid reporting from the Independent. Gives a good "you are there" sense of the rugged and difficult terrain. (Hmmm. Their subhead says "flee." Oh well.)