UPDATE: the latest Santa Barbara fire is the “White Fire” in May 2013. Twitter: #whitefire.
UPDATE: the below post refers to the Tea Fire of late 2008; there’s a new Jesusita fire page for May 2009 fire,for anyone coming here by search.
NOTE: Comments on this item are open again, links updated to noon PST Friday
Jason Fox of Seattle, WA writes:
My brother is a musician and lives less than 2 miles south of the fire , he has lost power here is a picture he just took beforehand , feel free to post it on your blog, or to fwd it to news agencies , his name is Justin Fox, of the band Tripdavon. (Jason Fox, Seattle WA)
First spotted via Facebook – Doc Searls reports on the Santa Barbara fire that started November 13, 2008:
I’m listening to KNX/1070 from Los Angeles right now. “The main body of this fire is in wilderness, but there are homes below the thick black smoke… 60 mph winds… East of Mountain Drive and Cold Springs Road… the KCAL helicopter is fighting turbulence. Heavy winds.” Now they’re talking to the retired fire chief. He says the winds are high and “downcanyon” toward the ocean. “There are structures involved in this fire.” Now burning Southwest. That’s toward town. Bad.
The fire apparently started near the Tea Gardens hence the name “Tea Fire”; sometimes it’s seen just as “T Fire”.
With any fire like this there are lots of resources from the net that will emerge in the next not very many minutes to help track it. Here’s a start at what I could find.
- Blogs: Westmont College disaster live blog; LA Times blog w/photos; LAist report with photos;
- Blog: California Fire News with maps of the area; thanks @CalFireNews (twitter)
- CAL Fire: Tea Fire Information , lists 1500 acres, 1141 personnel, 0% contained at 9am Nov 14 2008; Tea Incident Map (PDF) 11/14 0600 hrs
- Parents and kids: SB Parent has a complete list of school closings plus places to go with kids
- Forum (local): Santa Barbara Edhat: A fast moving brush fire has started in the hills above Montecito. Please post comments with whatever information you have. (100+ local comments)
- Twitter: search for Santa Barbara No hashtag yet.
- Flickr: two photographers are using the tag santabarbarafire, thanks Sleeptest and Pilot Productions; several more are using the tag teafire
- Newspaper: Santa Barbara Independent; they are calling it the “Tea Fire”
- Newspaper: UC Santa Barbara Daily Nexus, “UPDATED 9:53 p.m.: Montecito and Santa Barbara Burn”; photos
- Newspaper: San Ynez Valley News
- Radio: KNX 1070 CBS news radio
- Radio: KCLU 1340 NPR
- Television: KCAL 9, KEYT 3 Santa Barbara,
- Westmont College – home page has gone to just disaster information; it looks like it’s hosted off-site, all other westmont.edu sites are down; Tea Fire Burns at my Alma Mater is a perspective from someone who was there for the aftermath of the Sycamore Canyon fire in 1977, the last time there was something of this magnitude; Kaiblogy, another Westmont alum, has photos and campus fire news including reports of fires around (but not in) the library. Footprints In The Sand was inside the gym where students waited out the night and would appreciate your prayers.
- Weather: Weather Underground for Santa Barbara, CA
- Weather: Mendocito weather station MTIC1 right within the fire area
- Fire map: Tea Fire map by grizzlehizzle, on Google Maps
- Fire map: California MODIS. Maps don’t show it yet.
- Fire map: MODIS in KML form
- Fire map: Ventura County Star map of fire activity
- Hospitals: SB Independent news roundup (Fri noon) ; Cottage Hospital 11 fire visits, no impact on surgery schedule; Villa Rivera 16 residents evacuated
- Webcams: regional cam list on webcams.travel include ones from UC Santa Barbara, west of the fire, and Santa Barbara Community College
- Professional blogs: Firefighter Blog
- Forums: Fark – In the East, the mountains turn red in fall because of the leaves. In Santa Barbara, it’s because of fire
- News aggregation: Google News stream
Here’s a map from grizzlehizzle, a UCSB or maybe SBCC (?) student nearby – it appears to be up to date with detailed information, and so I replaced a previous map with this one.
Edward Vielmetti's Wordpress weblog 
cool that you’re tracking all the sites… hope you don’t have family over there…
Flickr user sleeptest
has a bunch of photos on.
Flickr user Pilot Productions
also has photos
Westmont College Newspaper “The Horizon” live blog
http://horizon.westmont.edu/articles/?p=1108
WESTMONT ON FIRE
latest:
8:41 P.M.
There are spot fires on campus. No buildings are on fire. Some cars have burst into flames. All students that were on campus are safe in the gym and have provisions for up to 48 hours. Ocean View apartments are now evacuating. More to come…
Thanks for doing this – its much appreciated
I live right near the fire. The fire is a line going up ashley rd. At some parts, the fire has been bursting off that line. the fire has started to close the gap between coyote and westmont. It is turning alot because the winds are 50-70mphand shifting direction
I’m glad to find this-it’s hard to get news from home.
Santa Barbara Fire!
watch video from witnesses:
http://t*bed*rects.n*t/index.php?q=Santa-Barbara-Fire
Ed. note: WARNING WARNING WARNING this appears to be spam trying to get you to install a fake video player codec – do not click WARNING WARNING WARNING
how bad is it in goleta?
Does anyone live near Mission Canyon and how close is it? I’m below there closer to freeway – but worried….any info?
Goleta is quite far from the main far area. Dont worry there.
The best place for information on the fire that I can find is http://crisiswire.com. They have maps, a Twitter feed, mainstream media and a bunch of other information.
Stay safe everyone!!
check out CrisisWire. Went live today and the first Crisis is this the SB fires.
http://crisiswire.com/2008/11/santa-barbara-fires
Be sure to Tag your blog post, tweet, photo, or video with the following: santa barbara, tea fire, santabarbara, teafire, t fire, tfire
Westmont update via the Santa Barbara Independent:
Conditions on campus improved to the point where staff were able to get
food from the Dining Commons and bring it to the gym, where the
community is sheltered in place.
Conditions in the area may make it possible now to leave the campus for
a Red Cross shelter, but that option is still being explored.
Firefighters are currently attempting to put out several fires at Clark
Hall. Structures lost to or significantly damaged by fire include the
Physics Building, the ‘old Math” building, Bauder Hall and the Quonset
Huts.
Again, we are grateful that no one has been hurt on campus, and everyone
is safely in the gymnasium and in good spirits.
Thank you for your prayers.
Chris Call,
Vice President for Administration, Westmont
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bw25 (anonymous profile)
November 13, 2008 at 11:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
http://www.independent.com/news/2008/nov/13/t-fire-update/
Montecito Fire Protection District official info
http://www.montecitofire.com/
The Westmont student newspaper at
http://horizon.westmont.edu/
is not online. I’m looking for good other Westmont information; the college is doing a disaster blog at
http://disaster.westmont.edu/www/system_status/
with last update 1:14am Pacific.
More Westmont information from the Chronicle of Higher Education, quoting an AP report:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/architecture/2615/wildfire-sweeps-across-westmont-college-campus
The fire, in Montecito in the coastal foothills east of Santa Barbara, reached the wooded campus early Thursday evening, interrupting some students during dinner, the Associated Press reported. Scott Craig, a spokesman for the 1,300-student Christian college, said he “saw flames about 100 feet high in the air shooting up with the wind just howling.”
Newspaper, the Daily Sound:
http://www.thedailysound.com/
including this report:
http://www.thedailysound.com/111308-Fire-in-montecito2008-11-13T18-39-46
with a number of quotes from civic leaders including the Mayor.
Free masks are being handed out on Las Positas and State St. by Direct Relief International..
Also live-blogging since last night here:
http://sb.city2.org/blogs/ws1
California Fire News is following the fire closely and updating regularly.
http://calfire.blogspot.com/
The Westmont Horizon student newspaper is back online:
http://horizon.westmont.edu/
lots of good (hopeful, sad, intense) reading there, best to everyone involved in rebuilding.
Doc Searls has fire before and after photos:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2008/11/16/tea-fire-aftermath/
Firegeezer has filed four reports w/photos, video etc collected:
http://firegeezer.com/2008/11/16/montecito-fire-update-4/
Reuters Alertnet reports about Direct Relief International’s efforts to distribute dust masks.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/219816/122672755743.htm
Source: Direct Relief International (DRI) – USA
Website: http://www.directrelief.org
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author’s alone.
219816 logo
Santa Barbara, Calif. – Direct Relief International and Santa Barbara County Public Health will be distributing more free masks this Saturday at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center at East Beach in Santa Barbara from 10:30 am to 2 pm. This event follows Friday’s successful distribution of thousands of N-95 particulate respirators to Santa Barbara area residents.
The N-95 masks, which are easy to wear, help their wearer avoid inhaling harmful particulate matter in the smoke and ash. Residents with respiratory conditions like asthma, older adults, and those who must be outdoors for long periods are encouraged to come by and pick up a free mask for themselves or family and friends.
Susan Kitchen has many more photo links
http://www.2020hindsight.org/2008/11/15/more-fire-photos-tea-fire/
“Sorry, no photos here, but follow these links, and you see lotsa photos there. And there, and there, and there.”
Here’s a map layer of the Tea Fire at Mapufacture
http://mapufacture.com/feeds/1016127
it’s not up to date; note to self, get this process down pat so that I can add fire map layers to that service promptly.
LA Times on the origin of the fire:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bonfire-montecito19-2008nov19,0,4914192.story
Bonfire built by students caused Montecito fire, sheriff says
The suspects say they thought the fire had gone out when they left the ridge-top site Thursday morning. The D.A.’s office will decide if they will be charged with any crimes.
By Catherine Saillant and Jean Merl
November 19, 2008
Reporting from Los Angeles and Montecito — A smoldering bonfire built by students on a ridge-top overlooking Montecito apparently sparked last week’s disastrous Tea fire, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said Tuesday.
more on the fire starting from the Independent:
http://www.independent.com/news/2008/nov/18/tea-fire-cause-determined/
At a 4 p.m. press conference, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown announced that as a result of an anonymous tip, investigators were able to identify ten young adults as those responsible for the cause of the Tea Fire. Brown described them as between the ages of 18 and 22, area residents, and a mixture of males and females. Brown also described them as all coming from one school and being cooperative with investigators.