State of emergency declared as two California coastal fires rage out of control [Updated]

California's acting governor today declared a state of emergency in Santa Cruz County, site of one of two large coastal fires burning out of control and forcing residents to flee their homes.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi issued the order because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was out of state attending the funeral of his mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The governor is expected to tour the fire zone in Santa Cruz County on Saturday.

In the Santa Cruz Mountains, officials said two structures have burned in a 2,800-acre brush fire that has forced evacuations in the hillside communities north of Santa Cruz.

That fire, named the Lockheed fire, is being driven by heavy winds, and hand crews have experienced trouble reaching the fire lines. As a result, the fire is being mostly fought by air.

That fire started Wednesday evening 10 miles north of Santa Cruz, and the cause is still under investigation. More than 2,000 people were evacuated.

AccuWeather.com says that the gusty winds will continue at least through the weekend, giving little relief to firefighters.

"The rapid spread of the fire was aided by winds gusting to nearly 20 mph. The fire is burning in a heavily wooded, evergreen forest area," the forecast said. "The thick brush and rough terrain will make it difficult for ground fire control. Water drops via aircraft may be the best option at this time."

AccuWeather said the towns most at risk are Swanton, Davenport and Bonny Doon. The last major fire in that area was in 1948.

[Updated at 6:35 p.m.: Fire officials said this afternoon that the fire was moving closer to Bonny Doon and that more evacuations were possible as winds picked up. The blaze was 5% contained and was generating huge plumes of smoke over Monterey Bay.

Smaller fires were also being battled elsewhere in Northern California this afternoon including near the Central Valley town of Tracy and in Yuba County near Lake Francis.]

A second large fire roaring through Los Padres National Forest about 26 miles east of Santa Maria has grown, forcing some residents to flee.

Authorities issued evacuation orders Thursday that cover about 150 homes and ranches, most in the Cottonwood Canyon area.

About 1,600 firefighters are attacking the blaze, which started Saturday. The cause is unknown. Firefighting efforts have been hampered by inaccessible terrain and volatile winds.

Officials said the Santa Barbara County blaze, named the La Brea fire, has grown to 67,092 acres and is 10% contained. It consumed about 20,000 acres over the last 24 hours.

According to a statement from Los Padres National Forest, "firefighters worked aggressively through the afternoon and night to prevent fire from reaching the Canyon area, conducting burn out operations to reinforce dozer lines along the ridges under challenging conditions. Later [Thursday] afternoon, the fire crossed Horse Creek within the San Rafael Wilderness creating a massive plume of smoke. Another massive plume was created as the fire moved east into Bates Canyon above Cuyama Valley, however, fire lines protecting homes in Cuyama Valley are holding."

The state of emergency is considered a first step in Santa Cruz County getting federal aid.

[Updated 9:26 p.m.: The Lockheed fire near Santa Cruz has been 15% contained, but still threatens homes, according to authorities.]

-- Steve Chawkins and Shelby Grad

Comments

[Dave]

It would be nice to send more resources and firemen to fight the fires, but all the money is going to overpaid state retirees!

[hayseed]

Gee, don't tell me it is that time of the season already where us in the midwest capture the devastation caused by the enviro whackos who won't let the thinning of brush. At least the tornados we go through in the spring is not caused by anything but mother nature and NO not global scam warming either!!! I am surrounded by ravine and woods and I had a prankster set my woodpile on fire. I have a pine about 10 feet from the house and no damage was done period because of the thinning I do. In fact the fire actually created new growth of plants and growth.

[A Reader]

This is how it is when the Democrats are in control of both houses.

[MikeMora]

I have estimated the La Brea Fire at closer to 100,000 acres. Could easily double from the current acreage. I posted maps on my blog as well as Twitter.

[August]

Do Firefighters accept California IOU Vouchers?

[PW]

Where are the super tankers? They could be doing the job where the fire fighters are unable.

[Bigdaa of Goleta]

I live in the La Brea fire 'neighborhood'. Dang, we've had the Tea Fire, the Gap Fire, the Jesusita Fire, the Zaca Fire, and my folks lost their home in the Painted Cave Fire of '90. Seems like we are either flooding, shaking or burning around here. The cost of living here is high in many ways. May no firefighter or resident be hurt or worse in this latest of blazes.

[Asianfire]

Ever since environmentalists have managed to push thier half baked agenda of preventing controlled fires to burn off underbrush that used to prevent such enormous fires in the past, these "armagedon" sized wild fires have become routine, and yet no legislation dares oppose these so called "environmental" dictates that is costing the state so much and the loss of invaluable property on a yearly basis. When will the Californian government get the spine to stand up for common sense?

[Smokey Bear]

Congratulations California. You wanted untouched wilderness and natural forests so you prohibited the culling of dead timber and combustible materials from them. What you failed to realize is that "charred" is a natural color in the forests and wilderness. Now you apply for federal money to fix a problem of your own making and the rest of us must pay for your enviro-stupidity excesses.

[Howard]

Scary fire indeed. I feel for the people. Up here in eastern Shasta county we have had over 20,000 acres burn in the last 3-weeks. Of coarse there was no real news coverage outside of local papers, no state of emergency declared and no Govonator flyby. But there are no votes up here either.

[Bargtiem]

I live on the Texas Gulf Coast where, although we have been threatened by many hurricanes since we moved here in 1973, we have never had ANY damage to our house or trees or garage, etc. Yet people in California have told me NO ONE should be allowed to live on the Gulf Coast. Seems to me like California has a lot more danger than we do: fires, quakes, gangs, mudslides, etc. There have been wild storms, floods, tornadoes all across the USA this year and we have had nothing, we are even in a drought.

[Fireman Phil]

Congratulations Californians. You've repeatedly been given what you asked for and now you are anxious and displeased. For years you've prohibited the culling of dead timber and combustible materials from the forests and wilderness areas to keep them "wild" and "natural". Obviously, what you failed to realize is that "charred" is a natural color in the forest. Nature has a way of making it so.

Now you wring your hands in angst over the evacuations of fellow citizens, the loss of properties, the decimation of countless acres of beautiful forest and wilderness area to fire, and you petition for federal aid money to help stop the destruction. Great! So the rest of us poor saps now get to pay to help you tamp down a bonfire borne of your own enviro-stupidity.

Those of us in the rest of the country are of the opinion that you should forget about putting out the fires, grab the marshmallows, invite a few friends over, and do what Californian's are most noted for......Party Dude!

[Tweeter]

this is not new , this didnt come out of no where. it will happen again. I hope you loose everything for being dumb enough to live in parts of the state where this happens EVERY year.

[myronfrye]

NOTHING and I mean NOTHING makes me HAPPIER than watching California BURN!!! These fires are often human caused but the fact that they can burn out of control like this is a DIRECT RESULT OF PSYCHO ENVIRONMENTALISM (I know there is a reason the mental in that word) Enviro's are so ignorant about forest management, if these area's were managed properly, trees thinned, dead wood cut down and under brush removed these fires would last only hours instead of weeks. So I say BURN BABY BURN the enviro's are getting exactly what they deserve, TONS OF SMOKE AND ASH IN THE AIR!!!

[Shimari]

It would be nice to have a fleet of supertankers and more firemen to put out the fires. But we Californians have chosen to spend $Billions on feeding, housing, and providing "free" healthcare, education and other benefits to hordes of illegal aliens that live here. They in turn tend to pay no taxes, take jobs away from legal residents of this state, and they vote (illegally of course), which in turn empowers the politicians that (supposedly) represent Californians, who in turn lack the spine or the political will to deal with the problem. Nobody should waste a moment feeling sorry for the mess California has gotten itself into. My heart goes out to individuals that are losing homes and property in the present infernos. This story will repeat. But now we have CHANGE! (It is changing for the worse.)

[GT]

Why doesn't Obama do something about these fires??? The two biggest fires are in predominantly white areas in California, is that why this President ignores the suffering people? At least Bush tried to help with Katrina...

[Onsite Repair]

Some pine cones only open in the presence of fire.

If they allows more fire breaks to be cut, the size of the fires
could be more manageable.

Instead they get wildfires that burns 100's of thousands of acres.

Truly a shame.

Forestry classes make it clear how to keep from having giant wildfires,
it is not new science, it has been know for a long while.

Now you end up with huge forests burned to a cinder.

[Timothy]

FiremanPhil: most of the people running for their lives are out-staters who began their lives somewhere else but then.... moved here. Thanks non-natives for helping to destroy our state.

[Karma]

Oh please. CA always has information about having a fire break by clearing brush around your entire property.

They have goats that go in and clear areas people can't get to and they've been doing it for decades. I remember other states laughing at us for it and then finally realizing it is a good idea.

[erik in manhattan]

Where do you find firemen willing to risk their lives for a liberal shocktoilet like california? Esp now that you can't pay them

[robshaw]

But Myron - what about the people who live there [like me] - who are not given permits to clear "live oak" and "sequoia" - which are the two dominant species there [madrones excepted].

Rob

[henrick]

Ya Voll

Where is my Governor????? He leaves State in debt and burning!!!

What a man!

[Rob from California]

These are BRUSH FIRES people.....NOT FOREST FIRES! You want the state governmane to to MOW MILLIONS of acres of state land?????

California residents living in fire prone areas are MANDATED to clear brush away from their property by local and state fire personel or they are fined.

I always love how people are so quick to jump on California, without ever living here, experiencing life here, or meeting the average Joe here.

[Smokey]

The same thing will happen to other left leaning states in the west. This is 9/11 every summer at the hands of environmentalists pressuring the system, environmentalist legislators, and limp wristed activist judges.

States like Oregon, Washington who grow plentiful natural resources for them to use, yet give the environmentalists free reign to run rough shod all over their states, stopping progress in every direction, will see the rotten fruits of the greenies' insanity.

Environmentalists have hijacked our nation's economy and our nations natural resources. California is the just another casualty of many more to come. Stop the radicals by voting their cronies out of office!

[Bryan]

It happens every year. If you folks that live out there don't like it, MOVE!

This common sense message brought to you by everyone.

Just think, you can avoid mudslides, earthquakes and Pelosi all in one swift move.

[A.C.]

Just as there are some of us long-time Californians who have not succeeded in reforming the majority of California; disaster cheerleading seems in poor form, by any neighbor.

I wish the families who are directly effected (of all politics) safety, and comfort.

[Bill]

Comments are "moderated", read approved.
Is it in the land of the freedom of speech?

Poor firefighters - for some overtime pay they risk their lives and health to undo what the environmental wackos caused in the first place.

[Kalifornia]

Isn't Kalifornia totally run by the Kremlin?

9th Circuit Court/Local Kalifornia Governments: "Yer peppers arz not in order" . . . "Yer canut drill, log, or farm in zis most viewtiful stet of Kalifornia, vee must all be socially veesponsible and pweeserve our resources for zour gwandchildwen . . . no, no farming fo you here, go somver else."

Meanwhile, what was once beautiful forests: productive, young, and thriving; is now old, beetle infested, dying, overstocked, and now charred to mineral soil in stand replacing fires.

The only thing Kalifornians are leaving their grandchildren is an ecological nightmare. Young, thriving, actively growing trees sequester far more carbon than old decadent forests. Instead of trees utilizing their resources to produce exponential growth, regularly transpiring, consuming carbon dioxide and billowing oxygen - growing great guns like young productive trees, old trees on the other hand commit all their resources to mere maintenance of their stagnating heavy limbs that are not actively putting on massive amounts of new growth exponentially. Old trees devote their entire energies into maintaining its massive size, barely transpiring, barely emitting exponential amounts of carbon dioxide, and barely sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Their focus is merely staying alive not active growth like a young tree does.

Preserving old trees because they're neat or 'rare' is fine in places set aside for this (Wilderness areas, national parks, etc.), but to stop cutting of even trees that 'have just some' characteristics of an older tree (ie. is over 80 years old - which might be old in human years, but tree years - not so old) is ignorant, childish nostalgia, detrimental to the atmosphere and the planet, and detrimental to the human race.

[Jay]

I am from out of state but I have to wonder how bad this fire season will be for California. I think most of the state is in a drought. I have to wonder how bankrupt California will pay for all the fire fighting costs when this fire season is all said and done. I have a feeling they won't be able to and there will be a lot of neighborhoods that will be left unprotected and "allowed" to burn. Just my opinion.

[Bob]

It is the normal and natural state for the coastal forests and brush to accumlate and burn off in California. It has been happening forever. It will continue to happen. It is NOT natural for people to live in such an environment without clearing the underbrush and making secure zones without fuel between their home and the woods. Same thing goes for prairie fires in the midwest... but they have enough sense in the midwest to clear the woods. Selfish, greedy, wealthy Californians don't because of some spotted spider or other crap... but now whine about it. Get over it. I certainly hope the people of California do not expect any assistance from the people in the rest of the nation after they spit on our troops, harrassed our military recruiters, and had several of their representatives in DC callus "nazis", "racists", "ignorant" and the like. Good luck to you, Californians, but don't expect any of us to shed a tear over your property loss or the costs of fighting the fires. Most of us are begging the national insurers to "rate you up" for your artificially expensive homes and environmental stupidity so we don't have to pay to help you out.

[mark]

It is scary to read the rants of people so full of hate, lies and partisan bickering. How are they going to cope with the gradual decline of petroleum that runs their SUVs and provides the food that they expect to be cheap and abundant forever? Scapegoating is always a popular response to crisis, it worked so well in Germany in the 1930s, at least for a while.

I'm glad not to support either political party, they're just good cop and bad cop.

[B]

Burn Burn Burn!!! Take all the radical tax spending artists with you.

[Asian view]

It is time that the traditional practice of controlled burning of underbrush be taken seriously and any opposition to this by the environmentalists should be met with legal action, if reason fails.

The yearly cost to deal with these catastrophic fires is now becoming prohibitive and the environmental movement is quite silent when it comes to the desastrous effects of their philosophy of no controlled burning.

These fires do exactly what these environmentalists fear the most. It destroys entire ecosystems, including endangered species and their habitat, not to say the obvious of the costly damage done to property and lives and the equal cost of rebuilding and replanting.

It is time these environmentalists admit when they have pushed a policy that has repeatedly failed and be humble for once in their self centered lives.

[David Spurlock]

We could probably afford the firefighters we need if our state government wasnt too busy paying their friends 40 million taxpayer dollars.

[RoRo]

Maybe Global Warming is caused by California enviro-wackerheads, After all the trees absorb the co2! Thus allowing the wild fires to continue gives the Great State of California a carbon footprint on a biblical scale.

[calcapra]

the best post Kalifornia! Tiss so true. Its based on how they feel not what they know or what they think. (They are the ones that live by the net and the computer, not living or seeing what is out in the woods first hand. If a person does not live or work in the woods, they will never really understand how to protect it.

[Big Bud]

The liberals managed to turn California into one of the worse states in the Union, in less than 20 years.

[Courteous Wolf]

It's time we shut the enviro-nazis down, in California. They've done enough damage, and they pull the democrats strings all the time. More dead brush clean-ups, and controlled burns, to remove the fuel. Then lets get them away from the water situation, so we can get back to work, feeding the world! The Communist party has moved in on the environmental nut jobs, where they can shame us into allowing them to control us, over fish and other phoney baloney crap. It's got to end, and they've got to go. They're the ones responsible for this global warming hoax, and the primary green reason the economy is in the dumps. Remember it all started going bad when the democrats took over congress, and the senate, in 2006.

[sarajane]

The democrats have done a fine job with Kalifornia. When will they return it to Mexico? You have to think yourself into stupidity to vote for these people. The governator is a Kennedy. He is a DISASTER.

[Greg from eMpTyland]

people wake up this isn't the fault of environmentalists... as there isn't any real environmentalists in CA. it is the fault of the eco-terrorists down there... you know those tree huggers and fools that think they know about the environment.

All you have to do is look at Earth First... It started in Southern CA and the big wigs down there got a bunch of fools and old hippies to start marijuana plots on small acreages of property in Northern CA from Ft Bragg all along the coast to Eureka and told the fools that if they grow 3 crops for the big wig landowners from Southern Ca they would give them the land. Then others started using the national forest around the king range for their plots and the fake environment feuds began with the loggers. A big cover for Earth First is all it ever was!!!

[65 Percent Contained]

Uh... as of today the Lockheed/Santa Cruz fire is 65% contained and they're expecting 100% containment on 8/20. Only 2 outbuildings damaged, almost 7000 acres charred.

Nice work, Firefighters. Thank you!

[goodfriend]

Earth First started in Tucson, AZ, not southern California. Sounds like you could tell a great campfire story.

My best friend fights these fires every year. Anyone who studies fire science and understands soil ecology knows that fire are SUPPOSED to burn and SUPPOSED to happen, this is vital to our ecosystem. We have to deal with the lives we have all chosen, to repopulate, live too close to potential dangers, etc. Environmentalists don't always make the right choices, rednecks don't always make the right choices. Being angry and arrogant spouting off how right your side is, makes for nothing more than a laugh from rational people who actually want to solve problems not just shout ideological catch phrases.

We are all "stupid" to those with opposing views, however, rational thought must win-out if any problems are to be solved.

[John Gargano]

So many fires of this magnitude are a testament to either very poor or no forest management at all. When is the media going to give attention to the real story instead of the disaster that results from ignoring the cause. Throughout the nation people know what's going on in CA. It's absurd to continue as if The Emporer has any clothes.