Firefighters responded Saturday afternoon to a vegetation fire burning in the foothills above western Goleta.
The blaze was reported shortly after 4 p.m. in Winchester Canyon, according to Mike Eliason, a spokesman for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department.
The initial size-up was about 5 acres burned by a slope-driven fire with a moderate rate of spread, Eliason said.
As of 4:45 p.m., crews had stopped the fire’s forward progress.
Temperatures in the area were in the 80s, but wind conditions were relatively calm.
The fire was burning within the boundary of Los Padres National Forest, according to emergency radio traffic.
Crews were responding on the ground, with two air tankers and the county’s Firehawk helicopter dispatched to assist with the fire fight.
Around the same time, fire crews in the North County were dispatched to a brush fire on Dutard Road, west of Santa Maria.
The half-acre fire burned in a field near Arrellanes School in the Tanglewood neighborhood, Eliason said.
In addition to county firefighters, personnel from the Santa Maria Fire Department responded to assist.
For a brief time, the fire was burning on both sides of Highway 1 at Black Road, according to emergency dispatch reports, which estimated it had the potential to grow to 20 acres.
Firefighters stopped the forward progress of the fire by 4:30 p.m. They initially estimated has the potential to grow to 20 acres.
Check back with Noozhawk for updates to this story.
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
