The Followspot

Punks, sweetgrass and summer

I am convinced that half of our adult lives are spent in trying to recapture the lost pleasures of childhood -- well, at least mine is. Long ago I waxed elegiac at The Broad View with "Remembrance of Toys Past." Lately I've been searching for something more ephemeral -- the scent of the past.

Does anybody else remember the summer smell of burning punks? You know, the long sticks of dried something (dung?) -- like incense but not perfumed except with a primal odor that must be encoded into our DNA. As kids, we'd light a punk and hold it between our teeth. It was supposed to repel mosquitoes but the real attraction was the curling tendrils of delicate smoke. I imagine Paleolithic campfires smelled like punks.

Years passed and the ancient folkways disappeared. DEET reigned supreme. It may be toxic but, by gum, it does the job.

There are a few places, though, that have preserved the past as if in amber, and they charge commensurately. The Vermont Country Store sells punks and mine were delivered yesterday. The price is $14.95 for 600 punks, plus shipping. Crazy, I know, but I've been sitting on the porch with the punks smoldering alongside and I don't regret a thing.

There's another scent memory that you might have experienced: sweetgrass. The scent of sweetgrass is intoxicating, an elusive yet totally memorable blend of vanilla, earth, hay and sky. Native Americans burn it ritually and some northeast tribes used sweetgrass in basketry for the tourist trade (not to be confused with the sweetgrass baskets made in the Gullah tradition in South Carolina).

I had one of those small lidded button or sewing baskets, bought on a family trip to Niagara Falls in the late '50s. (Dad drove our used 1952 powder-blue Chrysler sedan -- a dream car with a spacious back seat that a child could stretch out on and take a nap.) Somehow, the basket got misplaced and lost years ago. You can buy sweetgrass braids from those new-agey, herbal healing and ritual suppliers. But the old baskets are calling...

Jesusita Fire: update Monday noon

In any other circumstances we'd probably be griping that it's cloudy, chill and damp in the middle of May. But today, after the events of the last week, we are delighted and grateful.

The stations that carry local news are back to their regular schedules. Almost all evacuees are back in their homes.

Most fire crews from other cities have been released. Those remaining, along with our own city and county guys, are up in the hills, putting out the last hot spots. They expect to complete the mopping up on Wednesday.

What a stupendous job all our public services did. They are owed our highest regard and our deepest thanks.

---

In my Internet wanderings, I came across this detailed picture tour of our beautiful town. (The text is somewhat wanting -- for example, it's the Moroton Bay Fig tree, not Morton. And frankly, the photos don't do full justice to the full visual loveliness. Nothing can, probably, except being here.)

The site includes pictures of the disastrous Painted Cave Fire, which happened in 1990, a year before I moved here. The fire was finally stopped at the gates of Hope Ranch, and we live in what's known as the Hope Ranch annex. As I said in an earlier post, we were much comforted by our neighbors, who had experienced the earlier event and assured us that we were going to be OK.

Jesusita Fire: update Saturday early afternoon

The reports last night were reassuring, so we had a restful night. We woke up this morning to the wonderful sight of May Gray -- the low marine layer [fog] that brings so much humidity from the ocean. Wow! and Whew!

Most of the evacuation warnings have been lifted, and much of the mandatory evacuation zone has been downgraded to "warning." The Unified Command is reporting the fire 30% contained, which may not sound like much, but it's huge considering how out of control it all was.

Most astonishing, the current estimate of structures lost is much lower than it had been, now that inspection teams have been doing an inventory of the most affected areas. The fire crews have done a spectacular job.

I'll do a final report when the smoke has cleared -- so to speak.

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.)

Jesusita Fire: update, Thursday just before midnight

In February 1970 there was a massive student riot at Santa Barbara's UC campus. The campus, with its reputation for hard partying, seemed an unlikely center for protest, but there it was, and the cops came on very strong.

Not since then, we're being told, has there been as large a law enforcement contingent on the streets and roads of Santa Barbara as there is tonight, with police and sheriff's department officers deployed widely to serve the community by warning citizens of imminent danger, directing the flow of traffic from areas under mandatory evacuation notice, keeping curiosity seekers away from anywhere firefighters are desperately battling the Jesusita Fire.

Yes, the winds came up again, the fireline has moved both east and west. While we are not yet on evacuation warning, it could happen -- and we are packed and ready to go. The Red Cross has set up a second shelter for evacuees -- the first, not far from where we live, is at capacity. The second shelter is at the UC campus, about five miles away, and that's where we'll head if we get the word. If you have a taste for irony, savor it!

The best source for ongoing information is the website of the Santa Barbara Independent. There are spot power outages, and I want to post this now against the possibility that we'll lose our connection. I'll post again when I have a better report to give.

---

In a lighter vein, one of the TV guys reported seeing a black bear wandering through a neighborhood, heading away from the fire "with a distracted air."

Seasons in Santa Barbara — "rainy" and "fire"

From her East Coast perch Chiaro asked me a while ago how we, in Santa Barbara, experience the change of seasons. Fair question, since the image of southern California is one of unending sunshine, soft breezes, year-round warmth. But while seasonal changes may indeed go unnoticed in Los Angeles or San Diego -- except that hot gets hotter -- such is not the case here. In fact, one wag has said that sometimes we get all four seasons in one day!

Santa Barbara is situated on the only stretch of California coast whose orientation is east-west rather than north-south. This controls the intersection of mountain, wind and water that creates our local climate, which can be quite different from that of our neighbors.

The weather compilations here rather belie the experience "on the ground." There can be substantial variations in temperature and humidity in any season. And there can be a five- or ten-degree difference in temperature readings, day or night, between downtown Santa Barbara and Goleta -- we live halfway between the two -- a distance of about 10 miles.

The "rainy season" is supposed to be from November through March, though "below-average" rainfalls seem to be the norm. (How do they measure an "average" then?) Early morning fog rolling off the ocean -- particularly prevalent in May and June -- usually puts enough moisture in the air to keep our lawn green without our having to water it. When it's not the rainy season it's the fire season. But as we've seen, tragically, in the last couple of years fire season has become a year-round phenomenon.

Outliers: During the winter of 2007-2008, there was a deep freeze that lasted several days. It very nearly killed our bougainvillea, which has finally now come back. And just in the last week we've experienced record high temperatures: 101° at the airport, where the previous record for the date had been 84°. It's currently 89°. The overnight humidity, which should be 80%, has been in the teens and twenties.

Sundowners and the Jesusita conflagration: And then there are the famous "sundowners", the hot winds blowing from the desert over the mountains which both raise the temperature and lower the humidity -- the meteorological conditions which can turn a small fire into the kind of raging inferno that has been wreaking havoc here in the last few days. The foothills and the spine of the Santa Ynez mountains behind them form Santa Barbara's stunning backdrop. They are part of the city's glory, and at times are the gates of hell.

Mid-afternoon yesterday, just as firefighters, officials and citizens were breathing a great sigh of relief -- the winds had died down overnight -- all of a sudden hot gusts started coming down over the ridges and through the canyons, and seemingly within minutes, the fireline had reignited. There is brilliant reporting of that moment here from a journalist embedded with a group of firefighters on the front lines.

As I write, at 2:45 p.m., we are holding our breath and praying that today won't be a repeat of yesterday. If it is, there is a serious danger that the flames could actually reach the city itself.

Other signs of seasons:

I really can tell, though, when the seasons change. We have several walnut trees in our garden. They are deciduous. As autumn comes they drop their leaves -- and their nuts, making a field day for flocks of crows who at other times of year are not in evidence.

And spring? Ah. As the jacaranda trees downtown enter their brief period of blooming, they form a gentle purple scrim. And just down the road from my house, there is this lovely wisteria, a sign of spring I watch for when nothing else will do.

Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara

It's happening again, the third time in nine months -— a major wildfire in Santa Barbara -- and for some reason this one seems even more frightening than the last.

Crazy winds are driving the fire, which started yesterday just after noon at the head of the Jesusita Trail (thus its "incident" name) in the foothills. They are blowing hard and erratically. Our heroic firefighters have not yet begun to get a handle on it.

A pall of black smoke hangs low over the city to the east. The sky above my house is a brilliant blue. It's eerie as hell.

Here's a map, for those who know the town.