SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — A raging wildfire that has destroyed scores of homes in the hills menaced this celebrity enclave and other coastal towns Friday, and the number of people ordered to flee climbed to 30,000.
Authorities warned an additional 23,000 to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, despite improving weather conditions.
“There will be a point in the incident when I will have cautious optimism, but I’m not there yet,” said Joe Waterman, the overall fire commander from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Columns of smoke rose off the Santa Ynez Mountains as the 4-day-old blaze — fanned by “sundowner” winds that sweep down the slopes in the evening — blew up from 2,700 acres to 8,600 in less than a day, creating a firefighting front 5 miles long.
“It’s crazy. The whole mountain looked like an inferno,” said Maria Martinez, 50, who with her fiance hurriedly left her home in San Marcos Pass on the edge of Santa Barbara.
Predicted sundowner winds didn’t happen late Friday as breezes pushed the fire away from homes, said Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Tom Franklin. But he warned that the sundowners “could surface, change back around and blow the fire back downhill.”
An unknown number of homes were destroyed in the blowup that began Thursday night, in addition to the estimated 75 houses that had burned the night before on the ridges and in the canyons above Santa Barbara. No deaths or serious injuries were reported.
“Literally last night, all hell broke loose,” Santa Barbara Fire Chief Andrew DiMizio said Friday morning, recounting firefighters’ efforts to put out roof fires and keep flames out of his section of the city.
More than 2,300 firefighters battled the blaze, using at least 246 engines, 14 air tankers and 15 helicopters. A DC-10 jumbo jet tanker capable of dumping huge loads of retardant began making runs on the fire in the afternoon.
