Nine of the “Tea Fire Ten” Went to City College

This is indeed a tragedy for everyone involved. Hopefully we can now stop finger-pointing and refocus our efforts on rebuilding and healing. The pain of losing my own home was only exacerbated by the accusations spewed at the Westmont community while at the same time these kids were working tirelessly to help me clean up and recover. Let's let the authorities do their job dealing with those responsible and give the rest of the SBCC students the opportunity to help us all reconcile and restore our sense of community.

Those who jumped to the conclusion that it was Westmont students really need to look at themselves in the mirror and reflect.

On the other hand, SBCC is ducking responsibility. They should have a all-campus meeting to discuss this, they should start a fire-safety (and other emergency-safety) program, perhaps a mandatory course.

College students are careless and risk takers. We have 3 major institutions of higher education in town, and actually their benefits far outweigh the costs.

Nevertheless, Serban's comments are inappropriate. Lots of vitriol has been tossed at Patty Laney (called a hitchhiker when she was not; a UCSB student in the late 1970's murdered by a crazy), David Attias, Eric Frimpong... and for sure UCSB/IV have been roundly criticized for not doing better. Your critic is your friend, because they make you stronger.

SBCC needs to get realistic about seriously addressing the ignorant and dangerous behavior of its share of the local college students.

The MAIN reason somebody went off accusing Westmont College students was becauae the passage of prop 8. Like MANY of us said, it was doubtful (since Westmont students KNOW their immediate area & the hazards involved) & this proves true. In ANY case, it is sad. The good thing is that it wasn't some sick pyro w/ a vengeance towards society that started this mess of a fire :) henry

hank I am truly puzzled by your post. What does Prop 8 have to do with this?

I think Hank is referring to a commenter on a different story who, assuming the students were from Westmont, and further assuming they had most likely voted in favor of Prop 8, was essentially rebuking them.

Stop apologizing to the firebugs. They should have been arrested for NEGLIGENCE. They did not put the fire out with WATER!!! in a high fire alert area. When they were not arrested it sends out a message that building fires, oh wait, BONFIRES!!! is okay in a high fire alert area. Fires will still be made in these areas if there are no consequences. And so, wild fires will remain. These firebugs are responsible for the burning of hundreds of houses, apartments, people, and the death of so many pets. Homelessness in Santa Barbara has been increased in an already overcrowded homeless city. Stop pandering to the negligent acts of a group.

Charges really need to be filed against these students. A lot of people are saying "kids will be kids" or "I was just as irresponsible at that age." Well, let's imagine a similar scenario. Suppose the Tea Fire Ten were driving back from their bonfire drunk and the driver hit and injured or a killed a pedestrian. Would anyone be suggesting they should be let off the hook?

It's not a question of intent, but of responsibility. Drunk drivers don't intend to kill or injure, but they bear responsibility for their choices. These irresponsible adults decided to start a fire during the same time period as a red flag warning! That's not just gambling, that virtually guarantees a disaster.

"Tea Garden Ten" has a better ring to it than Chris' moniker.

RC, like tegrat said, it had to do w/ another thread where a reader made reference to the responsible parties being from Westmont College & said "they're probably the kind that voted for prop 8 as well" or something to that effect. That accusation was intended toward the fact that Westmont is a Christian college. In all, it truly has NOTHING to do w/ prop 8, my comment was just to point out the hate spewed by some who claim to be anti-hate. Cosmoparis2, as for their guilt, well, it's obvious, they're "young adults" which means they will face their day in court & the consequences presented.
HOWEVER, as I said, it was an act of stupidity, not an act of criminal intent.
There is a legal line for criminal & negligent behavior, they fall into negligent, the courts will decide their judgement come that day, simple as that.
I don't think anyone here is apologizing for anybody, just stating the facts as the law interprets the act to be, which is negligence :) henry

Thank goodness the college has finally been named so the speculation can end regarding Westmont's involvement. SBCC seems to be distancing themselves from any behavior by its students. Interesting that when it was thought Westmont was involved, there were calls for punishment/fines/restitution/etc. on the part of Westmont college, who is reaching out to the community and whose own faculty have been devastated by the fire. Double standards?

This is a tragic event. We all have to admit that no kid wanted to start a fire, it was a mistake. One they will never forget. They will pay a horrible price. It may define their life from this point.

No need to jump on, no need to hate.

There are a number of bloggers who owe Westmont an apology - be good to come clean and just say you are sorry you jumped the gun and said there was a cover up to protect Westmont, that if it was not Westmont they would have announced names.

So what just took place is the Westmont campus, faculty homes, dorms, classrooms have been destroyed. And then many in this blog attacked them without the facts.

What has Westmont been doing? Working at Cold Spring School, helping others who lost homes, in fact, handing out cards to get help sifting through your burnt home or to help move at last nights meeting.

Christian, for some reason Christians make you mad, for Westmont, Christians are stepping up, not pointing fingers, not being mad, and are helping when they were hit the hardest.

Interesting to ponder.

Makes me question who I am and what I believe. How about you?

I've never posted anything on a blog before but the comments here deserve a response. My daughter is a senior at Westmont and her experience there has been wonderful. It was completely her choice to attend Westmont - once she visited the campus she loved it and wouldn't consider applying anywhere else. She has made great friends at Westmont and the faculty has been so encouraging and supportive. I am truly mystified by the mean and just plain ignorant comments against the college because, from everything I've seen, it is a great asset to the local community. Perhaps people in SB are unaware that churches in the United States have a long history of promoting liberal arts education by founding some of our best institutions of higher learning. Just before I read these blog comments I was reading on the Westmont website about all the volunteering the students have done in the community during the past week - these are kids displaced from their campus who might be thinking only of their lost possessions but instead are trying to spend their time helping to rebuild other people's lives. Maybe you mean spirited bloggers should do the same.

Instead of debating what to do with the culprits, why not fan the fire of innovation? I just read a story in the San Jose Examiner http://www.examiner.com/x-504-Space-News...
about how NASA is helping firefighters with satellite imagery. It seems to me that this sort of fire monitoring technology could be used to DETECT fires. I don't know how many imaging systems we have in orbit but I'm sure we could have fresh coverage of Santa Barbara County every few hours. And if we had such an automated early warning system, perhaps it would have seen the bonfire at the Tea Gardens and notified the Montecito Fire Department hours before it became the Tea Fire. And all those homes would have been spared.

It's not science fiction. It probably would not cost that much. Maybe Montecito could pay Google for hotspot detection. Maybe the insurance companies would chip in. It seems like everyone has an interest in avoiding fires like this one.

Maybe these students should be required to spend time in a burn ward so they can see how their actions can ruin the lives of innocent people.....there is no difference between starting a fire in a fire area during a fire watch or driving drunk.

While some posters made very regrettable and bitter comments, to be sure, and while this story is a great illustration of the importance of "innocent until proven guilty," there was nothing anti-christian nor anti-Westmont *per se* about people drawing the conclusion that the kids involved were likely to be Westmont students given the information presented by the Sheriff's dept.

Indeed, lots of Westmont supporters also drew that same conclusion. (Some of my friends in that community were very VERY relieved to discover they were wrong!)

Now that we know it's CC kids, my *new* assumption is that they're likely to be at least some kids in the group who have lived in Montecito, just because they knew about the Tea Gardens. Maybe that assumption is wrong, but it's a natural one, too. We'll see what the facts say.

As any neighbor of Westmont knows, Westmont kids certainly DO go into nearby wooded areas to smoke cigarettes or drink. This is nothing new. It's a fact of life in the neighborhood. The students also sometimes drive recklessly. They sometimes park where they shouldn't. Etc etc. It is *also* true that the students are generally kind, respectful, well meaning and good hearted. But yep, they are kids and they do stuff kids do. Indeed, I know a few neighbors who are very tolerant of the use of their land for student gatherings because they understand this.

I bring this up because the 'facts of life,' coupled with the way in which the Sheriff presented the information he released combined to create NATURAL implications and lead to natural conclusions. That was the dry tinder. The frustration and despair of watching an entire neighborhood destroyed was the match for some individuals (not all, by any means!). Yes, tempers flared and this has caused offense and hurt, but I suspect now things will calm down. It is frustration and despair, more than hate or bias, that led to the angry words.

lwh16:

Does SBCC have some culpability if they did not provide students with a proper fire prevention orientation, as you said Westmont would have had? Living with a college as a neighbor is never easy, but give me Westmont any day over the one I have resided near.

Being a "SBCC Student" isn't really saying that much - it's a commuter campus and half the town is/has taken a class there or at Adult Ed, making us ALL SBCC Students. Certainly the administration isn't responsible for what we do in the rest of our daily lives. There was a little bit more significance when it was speculated that these students were from a nearby private, residential campus. It's unfortunate that the sheriff's original press release was worded in a way so as to fire up the imagination; I think that was regrettable on his part.
No two ways about it - it was a stupid thing to start a bonfire up there - and they'll live with that for the rest of their lives. I personally feel sorry for them.

azfans,

Fair question. MigraineJane's answer is more or less mine: a residential private college with lot of out-of-area students (and rules that drive certain behaviors off campus) increases the college's responsibility to provide a more thorough safety orientation. On the other hand, it is obvious from recent events that fire (and earthquake) safety education should be emphasized in ALL our schools.

BTW, if you didn't see it, on another comment page a Westmont student wrote in to say that fire safety is indeed emphasized in Westmont's orientation.

I agree with LWH16.
I also am VERY relieved that Westmont has been cleared, being myself an older grad from that school. And I also have started wondering whether those SBCC students are local... But, let the authorities take over the matter, and let's pray for those young people, whose lives have and forever will be marked by this event they so inadvertently caused. I don't envy them or their parents, who also will need to face their children's acts.
Fact is: It could have been one of mine... They fit the profile, but thank God, they're not involved.

Unfortunately, the drunk driving analogy is all too true. People will do something stupid like light a fire or drive drunk even when you tell them not to and tell them what the consequences are. If the drunk driver KNEW they would kill someone on the way home, they wouldn't do it... the problem is they have the attitude that it won't happen to them, that they know what they are doing, or that they are actually a very good drunk driver.

For all we know, those kids DID drive home drunk and were just lucky not to hit anyone. Just like on previous trips (of which I'm sure there were many) to the Tea Gardens, they were lucky enough not to start a wildfire.

Young kids especially won't take warnings seriously until something happens that directly affects them. And even then, those kids and even some adults will rationalize that THEY know how to put a fire out right, or that having a fire on the beach is MUCH safer and will end up causing this again because all it takes is not putting the fire out completely or thinking the beach is safer when its not and mix that with the right set of conditions and you've got another disaster.

What is the solution? Unfortunately I don't think there is one. I believe these kids should face consequences, should be put to work cleaning up and rebuilding but don't think it will stop it from happening again... these kids will probably never even attend a safe and legal bonfire again their entire lives (may not even want to barbeque).

Those kids are not the ONLY kids in the history of this town to have lit a bonfire up there or other equally dangerous places. THAT is why some of us feel that punishing them as if they were intentional arsonists is a bit harsh. Its a fairly common activity no matter how many warnings or how illegal it is... these kids were unfortunate enough to be the ones who did it during conditions that were a recipe for this kind of disaster. They should face the consequences but should not be drawn and quartered.

revdrdog, I believe the MODIS satellite already does that. Check out these two sites:
http://wildfire.cr.usgs.gov/fireplanning...
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/

"Brown characterized the peoples’ actions were not malicious, but careless."

I have heard that the majority of fires are started by people who don't intend to do so.

I see lots of people throwing lit cigarettes out of their vehicles. Bad stuff.

I previously mentioned a few months back that this over filling of student spots would lead to big trouble. This city is only so big.

With over six colleges there are too many roudy unsubordinate partiers in this town.

Sad but true, it's only a matter of time before this thing gets more out of control.

A larger more "dense" population leads to more incidents of "everything" every type of crime goes up!

Who is Chris Moniker?

Hey maybe all of the colleges can pitch in and buy that land that was burned and put housing for more students.

This could be an opportunity to really up the necessary housing to over 200,000.00 students more. Think of all the money these Colleges could make for the whole City.

(More Vitriol for Ya!!!!!)

I heard this thing could go into a couple of Billion Dollars!

It thats true "The Tea Ten" can never buy a house, own a car, get married - is this true?

What is really annoying me is that the police and DA won't announce the names of the the "Tea Fire 10" responsible. There has been no talk of prosecution, community service, financial responsibility - nothing!! They should be involved in the recovery process. They should be out there rummaging through the ashes and mud and muck with those of us who lost our homes. They should be out there dumping the ashes and burned up personal possessions in the dumpsters. They should individually visit each and every person who lost their home or car or garage or in the case of Lance and Carla Hoffman their lives they way they knew it to be, 29 years old and they'll have painful scars they rest of their lives - all because of 10 "adults" stupidity. They should be at the hospital bringing food and water to the family and begging for forgiveness.

Don't misunderstand me - I don't want them in jail, I don't want they rest of their lives ruined. I want to see personal responsibility either forced through our legal system or better yet, forced by their own sense of decency.

Homeless on Conejo

sbgal,
The wheels of justice turn very slowly. The DA's office will review the police reports and recommendations carefully to make sure all is in order before deciding on charges and the solidity of the individual cases. Some suspects will be more culpable than others-- so deciding the severity of charges against each of the ten will take time. Most of the burn area will be cleaned up and partially rebuilt by the time this case goes to trial, a verdict is reached and sentencing occurs. I would also expect plea bargains to be made in the lesser cases (those who didn't actually start the fire and/or those who thought they put it out), as well. So as far as the Tea Garden Ten helping in the cleanup--not likely, unless their attorneys have told them to pitch in anonymously so once charges are filed, it will look good during trial that they helped repair some of the damage. I hope your local newspapers stay on top of this and do some digging to get answers for all of you fire victims who need closure.