Santa Barbara is on fire. Again.

November 13th, 2008 by Jim Clark

A fast moving brush fire has started in the hills above Montecito. I left work at SBCC shortly after it started and the huge flames were very visible from the east campus. It looked really bad.

Apparently downtown traffic is really screwed up, there’s a major power outage, and people are already losing their homes in the blaze. Spot fires on Westmont campus are being reported. Major evacuations are underway.

They’re calling it the “Tea Fire” for some reason. I heard that they think it started above the Tea House structure on Westmont Campus, but that’s really no excuse for giving the fire such a ridiculous name. That’s just lazy… if anything, they should have called it the Tea House Fire. The local media really like to dumb things down.

(Pictures stolen from Lisa Slavid via EdHat.)

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9 Responses to “Santa Barbara is on fire. Again.”

on 13 Nov 2008 at 10:00 pm dave

Santa Barbara Fire!
watch video from witnesses:
http://tubedirects.net/index.php?q=Santa-Barbara-Fire
on 13 Nov 2008 at 10:01 pm Jim Clark

For those of you hitting this page via a Google search, please note that this site is a piss-poor source of news. I mostly post nonsense about my kids and my ukulele music. But I’ll try to add updates for a while.

Other places to look for current updates:

http://www.edhat.com
http://www.noozhawk.com
http://www.independent.com
http://www.montecitofire.com

Westmont has a live blog going over at http://horizon.westmont.edu/articles/?p=1108

You are welcome to post comments here, especially if you’re from the area and have an update or question or something.
on 13 Nov 2008 at 10:03 pm Jim Clark

Lots of up-to-the minute ~~hearsay~~ news here:

http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?id=1215&tid=1394&art=15169
on 13 Nov 2008 at 10:18 pm gillian

That sucks. I hope everyone stays safe and they put out the blaze(s) soon. I’ll be thinking of you and your loved ones.
on 13 Nov 2008 at 10:27 pm Jim Clark

KEYT reports that there is a call center set up. Here is the phone number: 805-681-5197.

As usual with emergency call centers in this town, calling this number will result in hearing a busy signal.
on 13 Nov 2008 at 10:31 pm Jim Clark

Lots of Google searches are still landing on this page. Okay, here’s more info:

Google Maps of the fire area:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=34.443725,-119.667292&spn=0.051035,0.111494&t=h&z=14&msid=113022420691920912386.00045b9ef1712164139a6

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=113022420691920912386.00045b9ef1712164139a6
on 13 Nov 2008 at 10:49 pm Tilly

The best place for information on the fire that I can find is http://crisiswire.com. They have maps, a Twitter feed, mainstream media and a bunch of other information.

Stay safe everyone!!
on 14 Nov 2008 at 7:18 am Jim Clark

Over 100 houses destroyed overnight. The fire apparently moved towards downtown.

Reports are coming in that no Hollywood celebrities have lost their homes yet. Oprah will have someplace to go for Thanksgiving. Thank GOD
on 14 Nov 2008 at 12:28 pm Cynde

I heard on channel 18 that SBB&T is offering a package deal for Mar Monte Hotel and dinner vouchers to evacuees. That is nice and all, but I can’t help but think that there’s a bit of brown-nosing going on here. I don’t Gap Fire evacuees getting such an offer.