Fire crews prepare for the worst

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

As favorable winds continued to benefit firefighters battling the Zaca Fire yesterday, a fire strike team based at Earl Warren Showgrounds traversed the foothills of the front country, preparing for the worst.
More than 200 firefighters from across California are staged at the showgrounds, and since arriving on Sunday, they have been examining access routes and familiarizing themselves with Santa Barbara and surrounding communities.

“We always plan for an extreme worst-case scenario,” Cal Fire Spokeswoman Cheryl Loetz said. “God forbid something were to happen, we have all these engines and resources here that are used to the neighborhoods and know their way around.”
Today, Loetz said, crews should start to work their way into the city, canvassing neighborhoods and talking with residents. She emphasized that there is no need to panic.
“It could not occur at all, it could be days,” Loetz said. “But we would rather be here and take these extra precautions. ... We don’t want people to be alarmed, we want people to be aware.”
She urged local citizens to cut back brush and develop an evacuation plan. A list of important items, such as medications, documents and sentimental objects, is easier to make now than in the panic of an evacuation, Loetz said. Pet owners should also make sure they have a carrier for small animals, or plans in place to evacuate large animals.
Crews from cities and towns from San Diego to Sacramento, along with 50 fire engines, comprise the Cal Fire strike team. If the blaze seriously threatens the city, Earl Warren Showgrounds will transform into a full-scale staging area for thousands of resources, Loetz said.
During a briefing at the Santa Barbara City Council meeting yesterday, City Fire Chief Ron Prince laid out the likely trigger points for evacuations of the front country. If the blaze comes within a mile of the Santa Ynez River, officials will issue an evacuation warning, Prince said. If flames hit that riverbed, that warning will be upgraded to an order.
Prince also told the Council that pilots in a DC-10 air tanker staged practice runs along Camino Cielo Ridge. That plane, he said, can carry 26,000 gallons of a wet, concrete-like fire retardant that will cover three miles of wilderness in a single drop.
“I’m confident that it would be very effective in laying a fire line,” Prince said. He told the Council officials considered using it yesterday on the live flames, and were debating if the rough terrain might leave gaps in the drop path, rendering it ineffective.
He also made it a point to emphasize that local residents shouldn’t panic, just prepare.
“We’re definitely not out of the woods. It wouldn’t take more than a couple days of bad weather to put us back in a situation like we had last Friday,” Prince said, referring to ash and smoke hanging over Santa Barbara and flames threatening populated areas such as Paradise Road and Peachtree Canyon.
High pressure moving into the area is likely to shift winds to push the fire back toward those communities, said Jim Turner, fire spokesman with the U.S. Forest Service. However, he described fire activity as “moderate” yesterday, spreading only 1,500 acres to raise the total scorched wilderness to 71,300 acres at 68 percent containment.
“We had a west wind that basically gently nudged the fire due east,” Turner said. “It also made it very favorable to start to attack the flanks of the fire.”
Firefighters conducted burn operations starting at Old Man Mountain and working east to Buckhorn Road, even directly attacking the flank of the fire and building fresh lines, he said. The blaze is now split into two active fronts, he added, one heading northeast and one moving southeast.
“We have the two-headed Zaca going on here,” Turner said. The north edge is protruding into the Dick Smith Wilderness, he said, getting close but not yet crossing the Sisquoc River. The focus, however, is still on the southern flank, where flames may swing back with shifting winds, putting Paradise Road and Lower Santa Ynez River Road communities in danger once again.