The wind-driven Alisal Fire grew to more than 15,000 by Wednesday and a federal Type 1 incident management team was scheduledwill take over operational control of the firefighting effort at 7 p.m., according to the Santa Barbara County Fire Department.
Incident commanders reported 5% containment Thursday morning, and said the blaze had grown to 16,802 acres overnight.
Click here to read a Thursday afternoon update on the blaze.
The county incident management team includes 12 leadership personnel, and the Type 1 team that is preparing to take over Wednesday evening has 58 leadership positions, according to Jimmy Harris, Los Padres National Forest Fire Chief.
“So we’ve really increased the capacity to manage this incident,” Harrison said at a media briefing Wednesday afternoon. “As the winds shift is actually the most dangerous time and critical time in the fire because the fire will change directions on us, so I think we’re well poised to address those challenges with the team that has come in and the small army of firefighters that we’ve amassed here on scene.”
So far, the wind has mostly been driven by offshore, downhill winds, but an onshore wind flow will push the well-established fire further into the canyons and into structures that had been protected from a downwind assault, said county Fire Chief Mark Hartwig.
“We’ll see some seesawing action on this fire over the next few days, and we’ll be very, very busy out there,” he said. “We expect that for weeks you will see, if not months, you’ll see fire crews out there putting out hotspots on this fire.”
Crews from agencies across the region and the state have been battling the fire since Monday afternoon.
The blaze was first reported above Alisal Lake on the Santa Ynez Valley side of the mountains, and it burned over the summit to the ocean along the Gaviota Coast, prompting closures for Highway 101 and the railroad in the area.
“It took about three hours for the fire to go from Camino Cielo down to the beach at Tajiguas,” Harris said.
Around 1,300 firefighters were assigned to the fire as of Wednesday night.
(Tom Bolton / Noozhawk photo)
Air tankers that had been grounded Monday and most of Tuesday were able to attack the upper end of the fire on Wednesday, but were still unable to drop down the growing east and west sides of the fire due to turbulence and high wind velocity, according to Matthew Farris, deputy incident commander with the county’s Type 3 management team.
Harris said that helicopters and air tankers are all “poised and ready” to make the attack once the winds let up.
Reopening Highway 101 and the railroad is a high priority, but the roadway was not expected to reopen Wednesday, according to Woody Enos, the county’s Type 3 incident commander. Both directions of Highway 101 are closed to vehicles between the western Goleta Valley and Highway 1, north of the Gaviota Tunnel.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office has issued evacuation orders for Arroyo Hondo, Refugio Canyon, and the area between El Capitán State Beach and West Camino Cielo.
Evacuation warnings were issued for more areas, and expanded to include Hollister Ranch on Thursday morning.
Visit the county’s website https://readysbc.org/alisal-fire/ for more information and updated maps.
An evacuation center is open at the Dos Pueblos High School parking lot in Goleta.
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
