On fire again ...

Looks like we moved away from downtown just in time! In case you hadn't heard, we moved to Goleta to family student housing ... it's way cheaper, and so far we're really happy we've moved. We're mostly settled in, got a new couch and most things set up. Still have a few left over boxes and other remnants of the move to sort through ...

But back to the pressing news of the day: FIRE!

The first fire of '09 and the 4th since we've been in Santa Barbara started yesterday afternoon in the hills above downtown, just a little bit uphill from the SB Botanic Gardens for those of you who have been there. For those of you who haven't, well you might have missed your chance! Anyway, here are a couple photos from day 1, just an hour or so after it started:

From 05.06.09 Jesusita Fire

From 05.06.09 Jesusita Fire

Not too bad, eh? Just a little spot on the mountain sending up a plume. This morning as I biked in to work, it was even smaller. I figured they had it contained and that it'd be out cold in a day or two. Certainly nothing to worry about.

Well, all that changed around 2 or 3 ... it was a pretty hot day (~95), and the "sundowner" winds started to pick up, blowing down towards the city at up to 50 mph. Yeah, it's a bad scene right now ... these pictures were taken less than an hour ago from our new place in Goleta (10 miles west of downtown).

From 05.06.09 Jesusita Fire

From 05.06.09 Jesusita Fire

From 05.06.09 Jesusita Fire

The "Jesusita" fire is burning basically two canyons west from the previous "Tea" fire area. The very first place we lived is now under evacuation watch ... a huge swath of town North of the mission is under mandatory evacuation orders as the fire is now completely out of control. Our last place is just outside the latest evacuation watch. It's so hot and windy that the fire is jumping long distances and creating spot fires all over, so it's certainly a dangerous situation for a lot of peoples homes right now.

The winds aren't expected to break until midnight or so ... it's gonna be a long night for the huge number of fire crews that have been called in.

It seems really early in the year for a wild fire, but we had no rain in April and the grass turned brown on the hills weeks ago. The seasons here are quite different than 'normal' ... the old saying has to be switched to: January showers bring February flowers. And, apparently, lack of April showers bring May fires!