The black line on the Gifford Fire maps continues to grow but so does the fire, mostly to the north in San Luis Obispo County. As of Monday morning, the 4,396 firefighters on the Gifford had quenched a full third of the line around the 119,214-acre fire. To the north in San Luis Obispo County, the flames have caught hold of an area of the Garcia Wilderness that is not known to have burned in recorded history. The fire grew more than 20,000 acres over the weekend toward the communities of Pozo and Santa Margarita.
During the Monday morning update, Operations Section Chief Spencer Andreis explained that Incident Command planned to go on the offensive Monday night. In anticipation of tonight’s firing operation to use fire to stop the fire, crews had prepped roads and lines over the weekend in the area to widen them and remove vegetation, while dozers had been doing the same to the south, west, and east of the Garcia Wilderness zone to build fall-back zones.
It may get smokier for a while, but the firing operation should slow the fire down “enough to get a handle on it, build a secure line around it, and keep it from going any further,” said Mark Ruggiero, a public information officer on the Gifford.
On the south end of the fire below State Route 166, where the fire began on August 1, the black lines were getting closer together, except in the San Rafael Wilderness. As many as eight hot-shot crews were cutting line by hand in rugged terrain. Fortunately, the fire had not moved in that area, Andreis said.
As well as a new base camp in San Luis Obispo County, additional bases for fire helicopters are in operation at Rancho Sisquoc, San Luis Obispo, and New Cuyama. The bases not only bring the aircraft closer to the fire, but they provide tanks full of water for the helicopters’ snorkels. In the Gifford’s first week, air operations dropped more than two million gallons of water and so far about 1.2 million gallons of retardant. A video narrated by Captain Scott Safechuck of Santa Barbara County Fire shows the heli base in action, as well as images of Copter 308 hoisting an injured firefighter out of a fire zone.
While new evacuation orders and warnings went out for areas of San Luis Obispo County, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office was able to lift some of the evacuation orders for areas to the south — namely, south of State Route 166, west of Tepusquet Road, and north of the Sisquoc River. The 166 remains closed for fire repairs.
A community meeting on the Gifford Fire takes place this Monday in San Luis Obispo at 7 p.m. at the Veteran’s Hall (801 Grand Ave.). The meeting can also be viewed at Incident Command’s YouTube channel and at Los Padres National Forest’s Facebook page.
