Goleta fire
'I had no idea the flames could go that fast': Goleta devastated by fire as record heat burns path of destruction
Eric Durtschi surveys the charred remains of his rental home in Goleta on Saturday morning. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Firefighters on Saturday were battling a destructive fire that snaked through a hillside area of Goleta, one of several blazes that destroyed homes amid a record-setting heat wave in Southern California.
Fire personnel spent the night and morning in a pitched battle against the Holiday fire, which exploded Friday night amid 100-degree temperatures and dangerous “sundowner” winds that made the blaze impossible to control.
Santa Barbara County said 20 structures had burned and 2,000 people were evacuated. The fire had burned 50 to 80 acres and was 5% contained, officials said at a morning briefing. No injuries were reported.
The county issued a local emergency declaration, saying the fire “is causing conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons.”
The blaze moved so fast that some residents struggled to get out of the hillside community, and 911 lines were jammed with calls. It was burning north of Cathedral Oaks Road, west of Fairview Avenue and east to Patterson Avenue.
(Los Angeles Times)
The Holiday fire is the latest event in a destructive year in Santa Barbara County at the hands of Mother Nature. In December, the Thomas fire, the largest wildfire on record in California, ripped through Montecito, Carpinteria, and other coastal cities, destroying several homes. Then in January, mudslides in the same area killed 20 people and destroyed still more homes.
Friday marked a grim beginning to what fire officials have warned will be another year of extreme fire danger, as much of Southern California remains under drought conditions. Last year was the worst fire season on record in the state, with thousands of homes lost and dozens killed — from Northern California wine country south to Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
The fire in Goleta was fueled by sundowner winds — notorious in the region and responsible for many of the area’s most devastating fires over the years — as well as record temperatures that stayed above 100 degrees well into Friday night.
Goleta residents Carrie Givens, 63, and her husband, John, 67, lost their home of 25 years. Their four-bedroom, split-level house was built into a hillside overlooking their 10-acre organic vegetable farm.
When she heard the wind pick up Friday night, Givens said she looked out and saw the fire outside.
“The way the winds were, as soon as we saw it started, I said, ‘We gotta get out of here,’ ” she said.
She grabbed a change of clothes, her passport, computer, camera and a pastel painting she had started. The couple also packed up their five cats and spent the night at a residence on one of their other properties.
Givens said she couldn’t save the finished paintings and expensive pastels in her art studio, her late mother’s ashes or the baby photos of her three children.
“That makes me sick,” she said.
As she lay down to sleep Friday night, Givens said she couldn’t stop thinking about her house. She envisioned the front door, the steps that opened up to their large living room with its high ceiling. She imagined sleeping in her own bed, on her own pillow.
When she and John returned to the house at 7 a.m. Saturday, it was all gone.
Despite living in an area plagued by fires, Givens said she never imagined she’d end up the victim of one. There were a couple of close calls, most recently the Gap fire in 2008.
On the agenda, Saturday was calling the family’s insurance company and canceling a flight the next day to Mexico. Examining the loss, Givens noted that some of her mother’s garden gnomes had survived, as well as a small garden fountain and a colorful flower pot.
“I kind of fell apart when I first walked up to it,” she said, “but what can you do? We’re all OK. We’ll be all right eventually.”
On Saturday morning, Eric Durtschi, 42, surveyed the charred remains of his rented hilltop home on Cuesta Verde in Goleta. He bent down and picked up the metal bones of three vintage rifles.
“This one’s the 1873 Winchester,” he said, studying one of them before turning to another. “This is my grandfather’s right here.”
Durtschi, his wife, and their six children just moved into the house just two weeks ago. They were still unpacking when a blaze forced them out Friday night and destroyed their home by morning. Durtschi said he didn’t yet have rental insurance.
The family had relocated from Utah after the school year ended to be near Durtschi’s business partner in their chocolate company. On Friday, two friends from Utah and their three children were visiting for the weekend when Durtschi’s daughter smelled smoke shortly before 9 p.m.
Durtschi walked outside and saw smoke everywhere. He told his wife to get the kids ready to leave, hopped in his truck and saw a wall of flames racing down the road toward them.
He called his wife at 8:49 p.m., told her to pack the essentials and to leave immediately. Meanwhile, he and his friend stayed behind to grab his father’s guitar and his journals, photographs and a hard drive.
“When we came out, there were fist-sized embers falling all over the place,” he said.
Among some of the treasured items lost in the fire were an 8-foot-wide painting of a Nativity scene that Durtschi had given his wife, wood carvings her father had made, his motorcycle and their children’s bicycles.
The family stayed the night with friends in town, but Durtschi couldn’t sleep. He woke at 5 a.m. to inspect the remains of their belongings and to compose himself before going to Santa Barbara to pick up his two oldest sons, who had been with a church youth group all week and didn’t know their home was gone.
“I need to come up with a plan and be strong so the kids aren’t more scared than they already are,” he said. “Hopefully people can learn. I learned a lot last night — I had no idea the flames could go that fast.”
Neighbors’ houses next door and across the street were safe, but his next-door neighbor’s home also burned. Around the corner, a team of Santa Barbara County firefighters was busy hosing down the inside of another home, sending a plume of smoke into the air.
Santa Barbara County sheriff’s officials are waiting to see how much of the fire can be contained before considering whether to let evacuated families back into their homes, said Kelly Hoover, a spokeswoman for the department.
“We’re trying to remind people that even though it may look better during the daytime, it can be deceiving because nightfall comes and the wind starts whipping up again and you just never know what’s going to happen,” she said.
Goleta was one of numerous flashpoints Friday as fires broke out across Southern California amid record-setting heat.
Firefighters battled blazes in Alpine, Camp Pendleton, the San Fernando Valley, Cajon Pass, Forest Falls and Montecito Heights.
The Alpine fire, dubbed the West fire, hopscotched through parched canyons, destroying 18 structures, damaging several more and scorching about 400 acres, officials said. One firefighter was taken to a hospital with facial burns and was reported in good condition.
But fire crews battling the blaze made significant progress overnight as erratic winds began to die down. By 7:30 a.m. Saturday, the West fire was 30% contained, officials said.
“Crews are making good progress,” said Cal Fire Capt. Kendal Bortisser. “Damage assessment teams are still out there. There are still some areas they haven’t gotten into. The number of structures destroyed and damaged will likely go up as they continue to work on their assessment.”
The fire was first reported about 11:20 a.m. south of Interstate 8 near the West Willows Road offramp. Pushed by winds gusting up to 19 mph, it had consumed 150 acres by 1 p.m. and 350 acres by 2:30 p.m., as temperatures hit 108 degrees.
Citing the high temperatures, low humidity and erratic winds — “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property” — Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency because of the fire.
Several of the homes lost in the West fire were at Alpine Oaks Estates, a 66-space mobile home park on Alpine Boulevard near the Cleveland National Forest. Officials said an undetermined number of other houses had been destroyed or damaged along the community’s winding roads, many of them set alight in spot fires caused by swirling embers.
“There are homes that are perfectly untouched, and others that are burned to the ground,” said Bill Paskle, chief of the Alpine Fire Protection District.
An overnight shelter was set up at Los Coches Creek Middle School on Dunbar Lane.
“We just grabbed everything you can’t replace or re-buy,” said Ben Stanfill, who was at the shelter late in the day after a frantic evacuation of his mother’s house. “My grandma’s photographs, the cat, my sister’s Mickey Mouse teddy bear she’s had since she was little.”
The house was not in the mandatory evacuation zone, but the family just wanted to be safe, Stanfill said. He didn’t know how close the flames had come.
“Now we just wait and see,” he said, sitting on a rock outside the shelter, sweating.
By Saturday morning, the Valley fire in San Bernardino County had grown to 1,000 acres, threatening hundreds of homes and prompting evacuations of some communities, according to the fire department.
The uncontained blaze continues to move north and east, pushing higher into the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area, officials said.
No homes have been destroyed, said Cathey Mattingly, the public information officer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Highway 38 remained closed from Bryant Street up to Lake Williams Drive.
About 500 personnel were on scene, including Cal Fire, San Bernardino County Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
The blaze is climbing steep terrain, Mattingly said. While humidity remained low, wind conditions were calmer than Friday night, which should help firefighting efforts, she said.
Many parts of Southern California hit new high-temperature marks Friday, with a few spots reaching the hottest readings recorded. Among the places that set records were Van Nuys Airport (117 degrees), Burbank Airport (114), Santa Ana (114) and Ramona (115), according to the National Weather Service.
The heat wave continues Saturday, but temperatures will be lower than on Friday.
Temperatures are expected to hit the 80s along the coast and above 100 degrees inland. Interior valley and desert areas could top 110.
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