Jim Spink was playing catch with his 13-year-old son, Kyle, in his driveway in the Goleta foothills when he got the call from his brother Friday night.
“There’s a fire at the top of Fairview!” his brother told him.
Spink turned around and saw the flames and the glow from the Holiday Fire. With powerful sundowner winds blowing, he knew exactly what to do: Leave immediately.
“We got out of there pretty quick,” Spink said of his wife, two teenage children and their dog, a terrier mix named Chessie.
The Spinks previously evacuated from their home on Cambridge Drive, near Cielo Road, during the Gap Fire in 2008 and the Jesusita Fire in 2009, and they also left the area in December due to the thick, choking smoke from the Thomas Fire.
Spink said he keeps a large tub of valuables, and he grabbed the family’s computers, photos, important documents and left.
“I felt pretty vulnerable,” said the engineer at Northrup Grumman in Goleta. “We were pretty concerned.”
Spink has three large eucalyptus trees in his backyard that he knows could catch fire quickly. The power at the house went out shortly after his brother called, he said.
The Holiday Fire broke out around 8:45 p.m. Friday near Holiday Hill Road, to the west of North Fairview Avenue above Cathedral Oaks Road. Initially, the 100-acre wildfire was believed to have destroyed at least 20 homes, but that figure has been revised to under a dozen as of Sunday.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
The Spinks first went to his brother’s house near North Kellogg Avenue, and then left for a friend’s house on the Mesa in Santa Barbara.
While the family dog went with them, they left behind the chickens.
Their house made it through the fire, but they know others were not so lucky.
“We’re thinking about people who lost their homes,” Spink told Noozhawk. “It’s a small, close-knit community and our thoughts are with them.”
Kyle Spink knew just what to take in case they weren’t able to get home. He grabbed his signed Clayton Kershaw baseball.
“The kid has his priorities straight,” Spink joked.
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— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
