Officials lifted all Cave Fire evacuation orders and debris flow evacuation warnings Wednesday morning after the Santa Barbara South Coast got about 1 inch of rain in the overnight storm, and firefighters reached 20-percent containment of the blaze that has been burning the foothills since Monday afternoon.
Highway 154 remains closed between Highway 192 on the Santa Barbara side to Painted Cave Road, except for residents of the area, according to the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management.
The evacuation center at Goleta Valley Community Center will close Wednesday, and anyone with questions about animal sheltering is asked to call the hotline at 805.681.4332.
County Fire Capt. Daniel Bertucelli said the blaze was estimated at 4,367 acres and 20-percent containment as of Wednesday morning.
Some mutual-aid firefighting resources were expected to demobilize soon, although local resources will stay assigned until the fire is completely contained, he said.
“Incident Command is reporting that with good progress on the fire fight, repopulation plans are being evaluated and all should be in their homes later today and in time for Thanksgiving,” County Fire spokesman Mike Eliason said. “We thank you for helping the community as a whole work together to keep everyone safe.”
Late Tuesday night, the county issued evacuation warnings for neighborhoods south of the burn area due to concerns for post-fire flooding and debris flows.
The National Weather Service expected up to 2 inches of rain between Wednesday and Friday along the South Coast, including freshly-burned areas of the Santa Ynez Mountains frontcountry.
In addition, rainfall rates of more than 1/2-inch per hour were possible, causing concern for mud and debris flows in the areas that burned this week or are currently still burning.
County Flood Control crews were working most of the day and night Tuesday to clean out debris basins in the Cave Fire area, including the San Antonio and San Roque creek drainages, engineering manager Jon Frye said.
“Things are looking good so far, although light of day will allow us a better look,” he said at about 7:30 a.m.
The county’s webcams of South Coast debris basins showed little inflow into the basins so far.
County rainfall monitors showed the Trout Club within the Cave Fire evacuation area received almost 1 inch of rain as of 7:30 a.m., similar to nearby foothill areas.
Downtown Santa Barbara had .92 inches, Goleta had 1.06 inches, Montecito had 0.71 inches and Carpinteria had 0.59 inches.
Santa Ynez Valley, Lompoc Valley and Santa Maria Valley areas had received between 0.5 and 0.8 inches as of early Wednesday.
Check back with Noozhawk for updates to this story.
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— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
