Gap fire ‘still a gorilla’

SANTA BARBARA – Firefighters headed into their sixth day battling the Gap fire in Santa Barbara County, with a lull in winds presenting an opportunity to contain key areas of the blaze before extreme temperatures and possible lightning storms arrive later this week.

“This is still a gorilla,” the fire’s new incident commander, Wally Bennett with the Northern Rockies management team, told firefighters at a 6 a.m. briefing today. “We have a lot of work to do on it, and a lot of bad country to work on it in. It’s just one step at a time, and we’re going to get this thing.”

Weather conditions today are expected to be relatively favorable, with temperatures in the mid-80s and mid-90s, increased humidity to 45% and winds about 10 mph with up-slope gusts up to 18 mph. But by Wednesday temperatures are expected to rise into the 90s and 100s, with a possibility of a monsoonal flow Thursday that could bring thunder and lightning storms as well as more erratic winds, said Rich Thompson, the incident meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Fire behavior specialist Don Copple said “instability in the atmosphere” because of the weather changes could trigger extreme fire behavior and double or triple the size of the blaze.

“Anything we accomplish between now and then will be a plus for us when we have the weather change,” Bennett said, referring to both the weather and management team changes: “Any time you have transition, it’s historically when we have serious accidents or problems occur.”

The Gap fire, the state’s top priority, grew overnight by about 800 acres, primarily on the brushy and undeveloped west end. That brought the total acreage burned since the blaze started Tuesday night to more than 9,000, officials said. It remains about 28% contained, officials said.

South-slope winds called sundowners that sent the fire racing toward Goleta earlier this week continued to weaken Saturday night. This allowed firefighters to secure and widen the southern edge of the fire break, about 3 1/2 miles from Goleta.

Fire officials Sunday said they were now more worried about up-slope winds blowing the fire north toward the West Camino Cielo firebreak and the 150 homes of the West Camino community. They are also closely watching movement to the west, where there is no natural firebreak, said Santa Barbara County Fire Capt. Eli Iskow.

About 2,600 homes are on mandatory evacuation, and 1,400 homes are warned that they may have to evacuate at a moment’s notice throughout Santa Barbara County, officials said. Homes in Eagle Canyon were placed on evacuation warning Saturday night as a precaution because of the active blaze, and homes throughout the area were continuously shifted from mandatory evacuation to warnings and back again.

Firefighters will be doing back burns along West Camino Cielo Road before the winds push up toward them today. They also hope to finish tightening the eastern break.

Firefighters will be aided again today, with water-dropping helicopters, tankers with fire retardant and the military helping.

“We’ll have full coverage with the air attack,” said Maggie McDonald, air operations branch director for the fire. “It’s amazing,” she added, “there’s more people here than the state of Montana.”

The command team at the fire was upgraded to a Type I with the Northern Rockies National Incident Command Team taking charge. There are 17 such command teams in the nation.

The change was made to better work the fire, which has proved to be particularly complex because of the steep and rocky topography in the Santa Ynez Mountains and canyon areas, very dry conditions and 15 to 20 foot high brush that has not burned since the 1955 Refugio fire that swept in from the west through the Los Padres National Forest.

Water drops and fire retardant have been unable to permeate the thick growths of brush, merely sprinkling the tops as fire burns through its lower layers of growth, officials said. The last measurable rain in the area was more than two months ago, officials said.

Officials are searching for a fire line they can draw down the western edge of the fire, where the most fire growth is anticipated over the next week. In those remote canyons there are a few scattered houses but primarily just lots of brush.

“There’s not much to stop this fire with the natural landscape,” said Iskow. “There’s no breaks … to Gaviota.”

And to the northwest, the fire has the possibility of burning up toward Lake Cuchuma and the Santa Ynez Valley. For now, it remains to the east of Dos Pueblos Canyon.

The Gap fire started July 1 about 5:30 p.m. near West Camino Cielo. Its cause is still under investigation. The fire has destroyed four outbuildings.

Weary firefighters have had little respite over the last few days as some worked with only a few hours of sleep to get ahead of the blaze and protect homes.

“So far they’re holding up,” Bennett said. “But the bigger concern is how early this season started in California and the length of the season left to go. Most of these firefighters have been working other fires, assisting on other fires, for a month … and California wildlife season is usually two months out. That’s going to be a concern for California firefighters up and down the state. The length of the season, and the fatigue that goes with that.”

At one point over the last two weeks, about 1,700 fires – mostly caused by lightning strikes – raged throughout the state. More than 80% have since been fully contained, but state Highways 1, in the Big Sur area, 32 and 70 remain closed, and areas of Monterey and Shasta counties are under evacuation orders. Evacuation warnings are also in place in Butte, Kern, Mendocino, Monterey and Plumas counties.

The fires have scorched about 550,000 acres over the last couple of weeks. Throughout the state, 36 residences have been destroyed, one commercial building and 50 outbuildings.

 tami.abdollah@latimes.com