Goleta fire doubles to 2,400 acres

GOLETA, Calif. – The Gap fire looming over this town has grown to more than 2,400 acres today, doubling in size overnight as it burned for its third day.

Santa Barbara County supervisors declared a local emergency this morning, paving the way for formal requests of state aid.

County officials said the declaration was prompted by both the blaze and a major power outage Wednesday night, which, they said, may be repeated as flames consume thick vegetation growing beneath electric transmission lines.

“People should take this moment to be ready,” said Supervisor Salud Carabajal. “Get the flashlights out, and the portable radios.”

Farther north, a dogged wildfire is bearing down on the storied seaside haven of Big Sur, and firefighters are gearing up for a last stand against the flames while authorities prepare to order more evacuations. The blaze had swept within a half-mile of at least one major resort – the Ventana Inn and Spa – by mid-morning, as winds whipped the coast, humidity dropped and the fire grew by more than 8,000 acres overnight. But as of noon, winds had shifted and the fire appeared to be backing a way a bit.

The fires are among more than 1,000 that have burned in the state, largely in the north, for more than a week, stretching firefighting resources thin.

On Wednesday night, the Gap fire knocked out electricity for as long as four hours in a large swath of Santa Barbara County, but most of it was restored by midnight, said John Jaysinghe, a Santa Barbara County spokesman.

Burning acreage that has been untouched by flame since 1954, the fire has grown, coming within a mile of residences, but so far has not burned any homes. About 40 homes in two rural canyons remain evacuated today and another 300 are in an area that has been warned that evacuation orders may come.

Thick white smoke blanketed the Santa Ynez Mountains just north of Goleta this morning. But some residents found a measure of relief in the relative calm.

Rusty Eckert, a homeowner who had been up most of the last two nights, gazed at the mountains from her driveway and pronounced the sight good, even as an occasional ash drifted by.

“Oh, I’m happy to see what I’m seeing,” she said. “When I don’t see flames, I smile.” She said she chatted overnight with firefighters from West Covina and Long Beach who had stationed a truck on her block – just in case.

No homes have been burned in the fire, which started at about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday. Its cause is under investigation.

Firefighters are bracing for winds in the late afternoon and tonight that could drive the fire downhill toward Goleta neighborhoods. Groves of moisture-laden citrus and avocado trees stand between the mountains and the subdivisions, providing a buffer from the flames, firefighters said.

The forecast is much the same for the next few days, though “monsoonal moisture” is a possibility next week.

“That’s good news and bad news,” said Santa Barbara County Deputy Fire Chief Tom Franklin. “The winds along with it can be fairly squirrelly.”

Franklin said that Goleta’s Gap fire is a top priority for state officials as they battle the hundreds of blazes still roaring after a lightning storm triggered them on June 21.

“When a small fire breaks out, the state dumps everything it can on it to keep it small,” he said.

In Big Sur, with the flames growing in intensity, fire officials were expected to order the evacuation of the Palo Colorado Canyon, a few miles up the coast from the commercial center of Big Sur, which had been evacuated a day before.

Crews were spreading a protective gel on buildings at the Ventana Inn and Spa; there were unconfirmed reports that the fire this morning had already destroyed two homes in the hills above the inn.

Authorities say more than 1,700 structures are threatened by the Basin Complex fire, which has shut down Highway 1 along a 25-mile stretch of coastline from Andrew Molera State Park in the north to Limekiln State Park in the south.

More than 1,500 residents have already been evacuated, along with scores of tourists. Hundreds more are expected to be uprooted by this afternoon as firefighters struggle to stop the advancing flames.

The Basin Complex fire started during a lightning barrage that swept the north state June 21, and has burned more than 60,000 acres since then. Crews have struggled to control the flames amid tinderbox-dry brush and coastal trees, many of them hit by disease. The blaze is 3% contained.

The fire has been rough on the tourist-dependent economy. A number of famed resorts and restaurants that had briefly reopened found themselves back in harm’s way Wednesday and had to shut down again.

“Up until yesterday, I would have said it’s a day-to-day situation,” Kirk Gafill, the general manager of his family’s six-decade-old Nepenthe restaurant, said Wednesday. “Now, I’d say it’s minute to minute, or hour to hour.”

Despite evacuation orders, about 12 of the 20 employees who live at the Nepenthe colony chose to stay along with Gafill.

Gafill, president of the local chamber of commerce, said most businesses on the rugged 70-mile cliff-side highway had closed. Workers applied a coating of fire-resistant gel to vulnerable homes and lodges as the unpredictable fire raged.

“It seems to be giving the fire guys conniption fits,” said Darby Marshall, a spokesman for the Monterey County Office of Emergency Services. “It’s doing things they normally wouldn’t expect.”

Across the northern part of the state, more than 1,700 fires have burned in less than two weeks, charring more than 506,000 acres. More than 20,000 firefighters have battled the blazes, and about 100 fires continue to burn.

The Basin Complex fire has been the most destructive. Despite the efforts of a force now numbering more than 1,600 firefighters, the Big Sur coast has suffered the confirmed loss of 17 homes. Statewide, 31 houses have been destroyed since the dry lightning storms hit a dozen days ago.

“For the first time in my life, I saw caravans of people in cars packed with their belongings heading out of the evacuation zone,” Nepenthe’s Gafill said Wednesday. “What I’ve seen on the news from many parts of the world was coming back to us.”

Officials say they don’t expect to have the fire contained until the end of the month at the earliest.

“We know a lot of people have remained behind – that’s just the way they live,” said Maia Carroll of the Monterey County Office of Emergency Services. “But we’re worried for them.”

In recent days, weather has helped firefighters to control the blaze. Fog is expected through the week, and winds from the north continued to push the blaze back on itself, slowing its march toward more populated areas.

The winds also could push the fire deeper into the Ventana Wilderness and toward the remote outpost of Tassajara Hot Springs, where the Buddhist monks of the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center have been preparing for days to fight the flames along with forest service crews.

Although the Basin Complex fire remains less than 5% contained, an even bigger blaze burning to the east in the Los Padres National Forest was expected to be fully controlled by today, fire officials said Wednesday.

In other parts of Northern California, authorities said they were continuing to get the upper hand on more than 100 of the fires ignited by the lightning barrage June 21.

 eric.bailey@latimes.com

catherine.saillant@latimes.com

steve.chawkins@latimes.com