Firefighters continue to make steady progress on the Gifford Fire burning along the border of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. As of Saturday evening, crews had increased containment to 77 percent while holding the fire to 132,605 acres, the size it’s remained at since Thursday evening.
While news of the recent progress is promising, the fire hit a somber landmark on Friday, as August 15 was the date four firefighters perished on the Spanish Ranch Fire in 1979. Captain Ed Marty and Firefighters Scott Cox, Ron Lorant, and Steve Manley were based at the Nipomo Fire Station, and their demise became part of the “lessons learned” that have added safety precautions to wildland firefighting.
The four had arrived in their engine to a wildfire along State Route 166, bolstering the crews onsite battling a fire in erratic conditions; the winds were at times breezy and at other times lying low in the steep, brush-and-grass covered hills. They were on a ridge not far from a dozer cutting line in what were light fire conditions that afternoon. However, winds increased and kicked flames up a chimney within minutes that overran the dozer, whose driver took shelter in an open space four-blades-wide and had fire curtains in his cab. Out in the open and without fire shelters, the Nipomo crew had tried to clear space around themselves with a backfire, but the four died of exposure to the overwhelming flames and fumes of the wildfire that engulfed them.
The precautions developed after this tragedy were evident in the way incident commanders planned to backfire the Gifford Fire only when dozer lines were in, backup lines were established, crews were prepared, and the weather was cooperating. As of Saturday evening, the efforts of the 3,761 personnel on the fire were paying off as they crept closer to full containment.
Higher humidity overnight was quelling the fire in lower elevations, while southwest winds the previous day had driven the fire back on itself in San Luis Obispo County’s Garcia Wilderness. Along the ridges, brisk wind had crews and helicopters dropping water fighting to keep the flames within containment lines.
In Santa Barbara County, crews continued to put out hot spots and were turning to stabilizing lines and cuts in advance of winter rains and erosion. The work going into Sunday morning across the fire zone would consist of extinguishing the islands of flame in the interior of the Gifford burn, with crews ready to respond to flare-ups if gusty winds increase.
Along the reopened Highway 166, the delay is approximately 20 minutes now, Caltrans reported on Friday. That same day, the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) lifted the Air Quality Alert for the Cuyama area and Air Quality Watch for the rest of Santa Barbara County.
As well, evacuation orders and warnings have been changed. Santa Barbara County’s appear pared back to warnings along the 166 only. Please go to ReadySBC.org or ReadySLO.org/zones for exact location information.
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