The “volcano” on the cliffs at Hope Ranch grew active again on Tuesday afternoon, as minerals exposed in the soil got hot and caught nearby vegetation on fire. People living on Santa Barbara’s Westside called in to the fire department and to the Independent to report the smell of smoke.
An engine crew was on scene, said Michael Gray, the public information officer for Santa Barbara County Fire, with three more crews and Copter 308 enroute. Roughly a half-acre of brush has caught fire, with a potential threat to the structures up top, Gray said.
The “volcano” is roughly a mile west of the Arroyo Burro Beach parking lot and access can be slow along the sand or down from above. In a spurt last April, the flames were captured reaching from the beach up to the top of the cliffs in a video.
The Hope Ranch volcano sparks whenever rock slides expose the iron sulfides and hydrocarbons in the layers of earth to oxygen, setting off a chain reaction of heat and fire. It’s not an unusual callout for the fire department: “This area has a history of recurring geological activity that periodically causes flare-ups,” Gray wrote at an X post.
