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Jesusita fire in Santa Barbara, CA in May 2009

When the Tea Fire hit Santa Barbara, California, I happened to be there at the right point to blog about it.  The latest big fire there, the Jesusita Fire, is going as of this writing, and some people are finding this blog because of searches for keywords.

As a small public service, the best one blog I'd direct you to is Doc Searls weblog, because he has been doing the best blogging coverage of it and has more in depth roundup and review of the news than I would or could ever do again.  His piece on how the media need to do better reporting on wildfires is spot on:

With all due respect to the good jobs that most of the legacy media are doing, their coverage could be much, much better if they paid respect to those listening and watching online, which includes their smart phones. What they need are plain hard facts, rather than the vague, boiled-down or sensationalized stuff that was News As Usual for the duration.

Take home point #3 is all you need:

Uncomplicate your damn websites. Without exception, legacy media have websites that are far too complicated and jam-packed with visual noise, including promotions of junk that is highly uninteresting to visitors looking for hard facts about their homes and neighborhoods.

There's much more news and many more photos than I can possibly link to here.  On Twitter search for #jesusita or #jesusitafire for lots of information.  Tim Hatch has some panoramic photos of the fire.  The LA Times always has good wildfire coverage, not the great coverage that Doc wants for his neighbors, but something to put things in perspective from miles away.

Sayre Fire, Los Angeles

Hot on the heels of the Tea Fire comes word of another big fire in Los Angeles, the Sayre Fire.

Here's the news sources I was able to round up quickly; no doubt this will be changing fast.

LAFD suggests these social media tags and channels:

• Twitter hashtag: #LAFIRE
• Flickr tags: "SayreFire" and "LAFD" and add to LAFD Photo Pool
• YouTube tags: "SayreFire" and "LAFD"

• Los Angeles Fire Department: Fire update 6am Sat PST; Fire evacuation map;
• Los Angeles DWP: Major power lines taken out of service
• Blog: LAist - power shut off by DWP;  freeway closure map;
• Newspaper: LA Times - overview with map and videos
• Television: KABC 7 live video
• Radio: KNX 1070 CBS news radio
• Hospital: Olive View Hospital in path of fire (LA Times)
• Metrolink: Antelope Valley Saturday service cancelled
• Twitter: following LAist, Metrolink, LAFD

I'm particularly looking for news about Reseda (family in the area).

A comprehensive fire map from the Los Angeles Times:

View Larger Map

Santa Barbara and Montecito "Tea Fire"

UPDATE: the below post refers to the Tea Fire of late 2008; there's a new Jesusita fire page for May 2009 fire, for anyone coming here by search.

NOTE: Comments on this item are open again, links updated to noon PST Friday

 

Jason Fox of Seattle, WA writes:

My brother is a musician and lives less than 2 miles south of the fire , he has lost power here is a picture he just took beforehand , feel free to post it on your blog, or to fwd it to news agencies , his name is Justin Fox, of the band Tripdavon. (Jason Fox, Seattle WA)

First spotted via Facebook - Doc Searls reports on the Santa Barbara fire that started November 13, 2008:

I’m listening to KNX/1070 from Los Angeles right now. “The main body of this fire is in wilderness, but there are homes below the thick black smoke… 60 mph winds… East of Mountain Drive and Cold Springs Road… the KCAL helicopter is fighting turbulence. Heavy winds.” Now they’re talking to the retired fire chief. He says the winds are high and “downcanyon” toward the ocean. “There are structures involved in this fire.” Now burning Southwest. That’s toward town. Bad.

The fire apparently started near the Tea Gardens hence the name "Tea Fire"; sometimes it's seen just as "T Fire".

With any fire like this there are lots of resources from the net that will emerge in the next not very many minutes to help track it. Here's a start at what I could find.

• Blogs: Westmont College disaster live blog; LA Times blog w/photos; LAist report with photos;
• Blog: California Fire News with maps of the area; thanks @CalFireNews (twitter)
• CAL Fire: Tea Fire Information , lists 1500 acres, 1141 personnel, 0% contained at 9am Nov 14 2008; Tea Incident Map (PDF) 11/14 0600 hrs
• Parents and kids: SB Parent has a complete list of school closings plus places to go with kids
• Forum (local): Santa Barbara Edhat: A fast moving brush fire has started in the hills above Montecito. Please post comments with whatever information you have. (100+ local comments)
• Twitter: search for Santa Barbara No hashtag yet.
• Flickr: two photographers are using the tag santabarbarafire, thanks Sleeptest and Pilot Productions; several more are using the tag teafire
• Newspaper: Santa Barbara Independent; they are calling it the "Tea Fire"
• Newspaper: UC Santa Barbara Daily Nexus, "UPDATED 9:53 p.m.: Montecito and Santa Barbara Burn"; photos
• Newspaper: San Ynez Valley News 
• Radio: KNX 1070 CBS news radio
• Radio:  KCLU 1340 NPR
• Television: KCAL 9, KEYT 3 Santa Barbara,
• Westmont College - home page has gone to just disaster information; it looks like it's hosted off-site, all other westmont.edu sites are down; Tea Fire Burns at my Alma Mater is a perspective from someone who was there for the aftermath of the Sycamore Canyon fire in 1977, the last time there was something of this magnitude; Kaiblogy, another Westmont alum, has photos and campus fire news including reports of fires around (but not in) the library.  Footprints In The Sand was inside the gym where students waited out the night and would appreciate your prayers.
• Weather: Weather Underground for Santa Barbara, CA
• Weather: Mendocito weather station MTIC1 right within the fire area
• Fire map: Tea Fire map by grizzlehizzle, on Google Maps
• Fire map: California MODIS. Maps don't show it yet.
• Fire map: MODIS in KML form
• Fire map: Ventura County Star map of fire activity 
• Hospitals: SB Independent news roundup (Fri noon) ; Cottage Hospital 11 fire visits, no impact on surgery schedule; Villa Rivera 16 residents evacuated 
• Webcams: regional cam list on webcams.travel include ones from UC Santa Barbara, west of the fire, and Santa Barbara Community College
• Professional blogs: Firefighter Blog
• Forums: Fark - In the East, the mountains turn red in fall because of the leaves. In Santa Barbara, it's because of fire 
• News aggregation: Google News stream

Here's a map from grizzlehizzle, a UCSB or maybe SBCC (?) student nearby - it appears to be up to date with detailed information, and so I replaced a previous map with this one.
View Larger Map