Paul Cronshaw watches the progress on Day 2 of the 2007 Zaca Fire from near McKinley Springs in the Santa Barbara backcountry. 
Topography of Santa Barbara County lies in an east-west direction that allows winds to flow upstream along the river corridors. 
Santa Barbara wildfire history from 1913 to 2020 shows that the majority of the fires occur in the county’s mountain ranges and interior river corridors. 
Map shows fires in excess of 10,000 acres over the past century. Most have occurred in the backcountry areas of the county and only one, the Oso Canyon Fire in 1923, threatened the front country area. 
The Los Padres National Forest wilderness areas overlaid on the fire map. 
Zaca fire perimeter shows that most of the fire occurred within the San Rafael and Dick Smith wilderness areas and inside the ‘backcountry box.’ 
Zaca Fire map shows the general flow of the fire up Manzana Creek, across the upper end of the Santa Cruz watershed and towards Highway 33. Fire out operations on the east side of the fire kept it from jumping into the Ventura County portion of the forest.
It is a land known simply as the Santa Barbara backcountry.
From the top of La Cumbre Peak, in the evening light, you can look out across the Santa Ynez Valley and see the high country of the San Rafael Mountains, which bespeak of what lies beyond.
It is not easy to describe such land, or to get a feeling for it.
In many ways, it is a foreign land, not easily romanticized, one where you need to come to grips with yourself as much as you do the land.
I have been there in springtime, when the flowers are in bloom, the smell of the lupine so sweet that it bowls you over, the pastel colors as rich as a fine pastry.
I have seen the high country, full of Sierra views and island panoramas, and sweated through a hot afternoon crossing Hurricane Deck, wondering why I wanted to punish myself so. I've frozen in the Mission Pines when an unexpected snow storm descended on me.
There have been the starlight evenings by quiet streams and torrential rains that have caught me by surprise and without a tent.
I have listened to the sound of the coyote, been frightened by a camp-wise bear, and marveled at the tenacity of those who came before me, pioneer stock — like Davy Brown, Hiram Preserved Wheat, Josiah Montgomery, and Adolf Willman.
I have sat in the Chumash caves, and listened patiently, wondering at the messages they offer me.
And I have sat at the headstone of little Bessie Wells, who died at age 3 months, and known the awful cost that was borne by those who chose the backcountry lifestyle.
Land of Two Faces
It is a land that has but two faces—spring and summer—only there the summer lasts most of the year.
The topography is basic—peaks and ridges, deep gorges and narrow valleys, winding canyons, and broad valleys, mostly a maze of crumpled mountains and streams, dry much of the year, which run in all directions.
It is a land of yo-yo—you either seem to be going up or down.
To some it has a forbidding aspect; to others, like myself and perhaps the Dick Smiths of the world, its raw wildness suggests challenge, and a certain courage and determination to deal with it.
It’s simply wild country.
Working Vacation Preparations
When the Zaca Fire breaks out on July 4, 2007, my friend Paul Cronshaw and I are preparing for a 10-day volunteer project, what we loosely call a “working vacation” that will be staged from a small camp known as McKinley Springs.
The camp is located about seven miles up a forest jeepway that leads from Cachuma Saddle up to the backside of McKinley Mountain. The views are spectacular in every direction, and best of all the jeepway leads to one of the more spectacular parts of the San Rafael Wilderness.
Known simply as the Mission Pines, historically we’ve been told the main beams at the Santa Barbara Mission came from these trees, hauled down from here in the late 1700s. It seems an almost impossible task if true.
What they also contain is one of the magical spots in the backcountry, several square miles of yellow pines, big cone spruce and other conifers interspersed among some of the most picturesque sandstone formations in Santa Barbara County.
Loading Up
On July 5, Paul and I are headed up to check out camp conditions at McKinley Springs, and to drop off the parts for two picnic tables we’ll haul in to Mission Pine Springs, which is several miles inside the wilderness boundary.
We’ve built the tables from a pattern that I found online, cutting out the parts for a dozen or so of them, putting them together to make sure everything fits, disassembling them again, and then packaging them in bundles for the mules to carry.
Thankfully, we have the services of another good friend, Otis Calef, whose pack mules have been essential in transporting the food and gear for our backcountry projects. Hauling the tables in will be a piece of cake for Otis and his mules.
A Fire Breaks Out
While we’ve heard a fire has broken out near Zaca Lake, at 8 a.m. as we cruise through Happy Canyon, we’re not seeing smoke in the air. The hope is that we’ll still be able to pull off the project, which is set for a week later.
“We’re loaded,” Paul shouts out as he finishes securing the tables in the back of my 4×4 Tacoma.
“Saddle up!” I yell back, and we’re on the way.
Along the way, we stop for a break at a grassy saddle known as Hell’s Half Acre to make sure the load is secure and to enjoy the views down into the Manzana Creek drainage.
A few minutes later, Paul yells my way. “I’m seeing smoke,” he says, pointing back west towards Figueroa Mountain.
“I’m seeing it too,” I reply back.
There isn’t much to it, but there’s a thought running through my mind: What if the fire gets worse? Should we turn around now? Could we get cut off?
After a few minutes of serious discussion, we both agree that it’s still safe enough to continue up to the springs, drop off the tables at McKinley Saddle, and get back down safely.
Stashing the Tables
A half hour later, we’re at the saddle, the point where the Mission Pine Trail into the San Rafael Wilderness begins.
While I untie the bundles, Paul scouts for a spot to store the tables. We don’t want it to be too close to the saddle, where they might be buried if dozers come through to recut the road.
Finally we locate a spot about 20 yards off the jeep way, cover the tables with a tarp and head back down.
The Fire Intensifies
By the time we reach McKinley Springs, the smoke that had been a wisp on the horizon an hour or so before has turned into a thick column that rises several thousand feet into the sky.
Thankfully, we realize the fire is much further away than we first thought and not moving in our direction. No need to rush back down.
Comforted by this, we stop for lunch a bit below McKinley Springs, at the point where a steep connector trail drops down into the Big Cone Spruce drainage. If the fire doesn’t keep us from it, this trail will be the focus of our upcoming project.
From here, we’ve got a perfect spot to watch the fire. To our dismay, the column grows even larger as spot fires begin to erupt further down into the Manzana Creek drainage.
Above, the helicopters are hard at work, and the tankers are dropping loads of retardant. Against the backdrop of the smoke, they appear as small as gnats given the size of the fire.
It appears our project is not going to happen.
Questions on my Mind
Paul and I quickly retreat back down to Cachuma Saddle, but rather than heading back to town, we decide to get a closer look at the fire. We wind our way past Ranger Peak, continuing west to Figueroa Mountain and then up the jeep way to the lookout tower at the top of the peak.
Though the main part of the fire is still quite a ways from us, we have a front-row view of the action. Given the size of the smoke column, it feels almost like we can reach out and touch it.
It is clear the fire will reach Manzana Creek soon, possibly somewhere in the vicinity of Dabney Cabin, or near its confluence with the Sisquoc River.
The historic Manzana Schoolhouse at the latter location may be in danger as well.
Past Fire History
Both Paul and I are veterans when it comes to exploring every nook and cranny of the wilderness backcountry that lies below us, and it is shocking to sit here, witnessing what looks like the the devastation of country we’ve grown to know so well.
Just a few years ago, Paul and I had backpacked through this part of the wilderness with our friend, Roy Kochendorfer, and have fond memories of the days we spent there in the high country.
My first venture into the San Rafael Wilderness came in the early 1970s while leading a group of my Dos Pueblos High students up the Manzana for a three-day trip to Happy Hunting Grounds.
As we climbed the switchbacks above the Manzana Narrows, the scars from the Wellman Fire were still fresh. Most evident were the blackened trunks of the scattered digger pines and oaks.
Over time, as we came back time and again, we watched the slow regeneration of the chaparral, and marveled at the resilience of the trees I once thought had no chance of survival.
Fire recovery in the backcountry, I discovered, is a slow process and does not come without consequences.
Just three years after the Wellman Fire, January floods in 1969 will cause extensive damage to almost every part of the county. As a result, almost every trail in the backcountry is washed out.
West-to-East Topography
Though we on the South Coast are sheltered from the majority of Santa Barbara’s east-west topography due to the mountain wall that sits behind us, the fact is that fires such as the one burning below us tend to follow a west-to-east pattern for a simple reason.
For the most part, the county is sloped uphill from west to east; from sea level in the Lompoc and Santa Maria valleys to more than 6,000 feet elevation in the far interior interior at Big Pine Mountain.
Simply put, fire burns more rapidly uphill than it does downhill, and the steeper the slope the faster it burns.
Fire scientists tells us that for every 10 degrees steeper the slope is, the speed of the flames doubles as they move up the mountains.
Add to this the fact that the broad river valleys form natural paths for the air to move, with fire intensifying where the canyons narrow and steepen. This allows the flames to pre-heat the brush and create fire storms that consume most everything in front of them.
Rules of the Road
How the fire will behave now that it is moving up the Manzana will depend on a number of factors firefighters call the “Fire Triangle” — the three elements of fire.
Along with topography, these include both long- and short-term weather patterns, and the amount of fuel available to burn.
Current weather predictions are for temperatures in the 90s with steady up-canyon winds.
The recent rainfall totals have been highly erratic; gauges at Manzana Schoolhouse indicate that while a respectable 21.2” of rain fell in the 2005 season, that amount dropped precipitously to 7.24” in 2006 and just 9.24” prior to July 2007, when the Zaca Fire began.
Though it is early in the fire season and live fuel moistures would normally be high enough to resist intense fire behavior, the lack of seasonal rainfall the past two seasons has created conditions similar to those that would normally occur months later.
The east-west topography is also a major factor in understanding how easily the fuel can burn. East-west mountain ranges face the sun directly, meaning that the south side of them is fully exposed to the sun while the back sides are shaded from it.
The result is fire conditions that favor ignition on these front-facing slopes. Ironically, the higher rainfall totals in 2005 allowed the chaparral to grow while the meager totals in 2005 and the spring of 2006 had dried it our sooner than usual.
Higher temperatures combined with low humidity have now pushed the probability of ignition close to the 100% level.
Given the Manzana watershed hasn’t burned since the Wellman Fire in 1966, the age class of the chaparral does not favor firefighters either.
Who Will It Threaten?
With the Zaca Fire moving eastward up the Manzana, I’m wondering: How fast? How far? How big?
The big question in the minds of most is a simple one: Can a fire that begins far into the backcountry reach the front country?
Topography tells us the odds are that Zaca Fire will continue moving to the east. If so, a fire such as the Zaca can’t reach Santa Barbara.
FarSite modeling being done a thousand miles away in the Missoula Fire Lab supports this theory, with the highest probability of fire spread continuing up the Manzana and crossing over the east end of Hurricane Deck into the Sisquoc River drainage.
The Backcountry Box
The Santa Barbara backcountry is something of a box. Bounded by the San Rafael Mountains on the south and the Sierra Madre range on the north, fires that begin within the area find it difficult to move outside of it.
At least that’s been the case in the past.
Understanding whether this will still be the case on future fires has important consequences for determining how to manage such a flammable part of the county.
I posed the question to Kevin Taylor, fire chief of the Montecito Fire Protection District. How likely is it that fires that begin in the backcountry will stay there?
“That may have been so in the past,” Taylor tells me, “but with the changing climatic conditions we are seeing this year, all bets are off.”
Still the question remains.
History tells us that we should be more concerned about the fires that begin along the Santa Ynez River corridor than those further to the interior. It also tells us that those that burn in the backcountry are far more impactful on watershed values than homes at risk.
So how do you manage for that kind of probability?
Fuel Driven Fires
The Zaca Fire was what is known as a “fuel driven” fire, which means basically that the vegetation is playing the major role in the fire’s spread, while the wind plays a supporting role.
Further complicating the attempt to flank the fire and keep it within the wilderness area is the fact that the rough dirt road Paul and I just drove up will be difficult at best to hold, and almost surely an unsafe place to make a stand.
While most of the wilderness box is surrounded by jeepways, there is also a critical 8-10 mile section of the San Rafael ridge — stretching from McKinley Saddle on the west to Big Pine Mountain — that has no road to anchor off.
For whatever reason, when the Camuesa and Buckhorn and Sierra Madre roads were being built in the 1930s, what is now the Mission Pine Trail was skipped. The result was that one of the most beautiful sections of trail in Southern California was preserved as wild country.
But at the moment, that has also made it one of the most vulnerable parts of the forest for a fire such as the Zaca to run through.
With no roads or fire breaks to serve as anchors, crews are being helicoptered in to the Mission Pine area to clear as much of the dead brush as possible.
On the north side, other crews have been dropped along the east end of the Hurricane Deck, and are working with a feverous intensity to keep the fire from spreading into the Sisquoc drainage.
Their work pays off when the fire makes a gradual turn to the south, continuing up the Manzana to Big Cone Spruce Camp, and from there, steeply uphill towards McKinley Saddle.
Losing the Ridge
Firefighters have also put a major effort into opening up the ridge line near McKinley saddle to create a safe zone to operate from, but with a thousand feet of elevation gain and steep slopes, the column of fire, smoke and embers begins to climb towards the saddle.
Within minutes, hundreds of embers blow over the crest, and the Santa Cruz drainage is quickly engulfed in flames.
The box has been breached. The Zaca Fire is now moving into uncharted territory.
San Ynez River Winds
The Santa Cruz watershed is huge, six air miles across, with multiple drainages that all lead uphill into the San Rafael Wilderness near Mission Pine Basin.
Rather than pushing the fire down canyon to the point where it empties into Lake Cachuma, uphill winds from the San Ynez River drive the fire up the almost vertical slopes and into the beautiful Mission Pine forest.
The entire ridge from the Mission Pine Basin to Big Pine Mountain is on fire.
The Mood is Dark
At fire camp the next morning, the mood is dark.
The blaze has not only continued through the Mission Pines, but incredibly has churned north into the upper reaches of the Sisquoc River, and even more incredibly, is now burning down the river.
Perhaps even more ominously, strong nighttime winds have propelled the fire into the east fork of Santa Cruz Creek near the Grapevine Trail, and from there it continues over the saddle at the Bluff Guard Station.
At this point, the fire has become so big that a second fire camp is set up at Richardson Park in New Cuyama.
Preparations are made to set backfires off the Sierra Madre crest and along a 15-mile section of Highway 33.
The goal now is to keep the fire from crossing into Ventura County on the east side and from escaping over the Sierra Madres.
Firing Out the Backcountry
In perhaps the largest firing operation in the history of Santa Barbara County, with dozens of engines lined up and hundreds of crew members in place, torches are at the ready.
They begin lighting up the hillsides first near Monte Arido, a dry barren hump of a mountain. Then, progressively, they continue to fire off the Potrero Seco Jeepway past the Three Sisters, and from there to Highway 33.
With the exception of a few slopovers along the jeepway that the helicopters pick up, and a few spot fires along the line from Cuyama Peak to the Sierra Madres, crews have held the eastern flank of the fire.
It appears the worst is over.
The blaze was declared contained on Sept. 7, but it would be near the end of October before it was fully controlled.
The final tally was 240,207 acres burned, making it at the time the second largest fire in California history.
A Trip Back
The following spring, Paul and I return to the McKinley area along with fellow lite hiker Rik Christensen to see how thing have fared after the winter storms.
After a brief search, we discover the tables haven’t survived the fire. In the frantic effort to open the saddle area they have been buried in debris.
No worry. We’ve brought two more up to replace those.
Lessons Learned
What I’ve learned in the aftermath of the Zaca Fire is the crucial role that topography plays in how fires behave in our backcountry.
In more than a hundred years of county fire history, only one backcountry fire — the 1923 Oso Canyon Fire — has been able to cross the Santa Ynez River and directly threaten the Santa Barbara area.
The county’s biggest fires pretty much begin and stay in the backcountry.
It appears that future fire management policy should be more concerned about watershed values than in protecting homes and communities.
On the other hand, our most destructive fires generally begin in the front country. Some of our smaller blazes have cost the most in terms of homes lost, and in some cases lives, as well.
However our most vulnerable area in the future may be along the Santa Ynez River canyon, where fires can move either into the backcountry or over the Santa Ynez Mountain crest into the front country.
In the past several years there have been two major wildfires located in the Lower Santa Ynez Recreation Area, and one further downstream at a youth camp located near Lake Cachuma.
Next: Wildfire along the transitional zone between the front and backcountry. A look at the Santa Ynez River drainage and the fires that begin within it.