SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Thousands of residents were back home Saturday as a blanket of cool, moist air flowing in from the Pacific Ocean tamed a wind-driven wildfire that burned 80 homes along the outskirts of town during the week.
Cheers erupted at an evacuation center when Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown announced that mandatory evacuation orders for most areas were being downgraded to evacuation warnings, meaning residents could return but would have to remain alert.
By Saturday evening, well over half of the those residents were back in their homes, Santa Barbara County sheriff's Commander Darin Fotheringham said.
Thousands of residents were back home Saturday as a blanket of cool, moist air flowing in from the Pacific Ocean tamed a wind-driven wildfire that burned 80 homes along the outskirts of town during the week.
Cheers erupted at an evacuation center when Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown announced that mandatory evacuation orders for most areas were being downgraded to evacuation warnings, meaning residents could return but would have to remain alert.
Among the first to return were Jonathan Kenny, 44, and his wife, Susan Kim, 42, who found their home covered in ash but still standing near blackened hillsides that showed just how close the fire came.
A scorched palm tree jutted toward a clear, blue sky and a lawn chair, scorched appliances and metal filing cabinets were among the few recognizable remnants.
More than 30,000 people had been under mandatory evacuation orders dating back as far as Tuesday afternoon, when the fire erupted just above Santa Barbara on the face of steep Santa Ynez Mountains. By Saturday evening, well over half of the those residents were back in their homes, Santa Barbara County sheriff's Commander Darin Fotheringham said.
Notorious local winds known as "sundowners" sweeping from inland and down the face of the mountains drove the fire into outlying neighborhoods Wednesday afternoon, causing most of the destruction, and again late Thursday and early Friday.
A predicted sundowner failed to materialize Friday night, and instead the normal flow of air from the Pacific Ocean pushed ashore a dense, moist marine layer that didn't let the sun peek through until nearly midday. Officials had said an onshore flow would raise humidity levels and blow the fire away from developed areas on the foothills.
The National Weather Service on Saturday dropped fire weather warnings and predicted that overnight clouds and fog would continue through Monday morning before a return of a weak-to-moderate sundowners in the Santa Ynez range Monday night and into midweek.
Firefighters were cautious but said the blaze that had covered more than 13 square miles was 30 percent contained. "It's easy on a day like today to look around and go, 'Wow, you know, we've got this thing beat," Joe Waterman, the overall fire commander from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said Saturday evening. On Friday, it had been active along a five-mile front just above Santa Barbara, west toward neighboring Goleta and east toward the community of Montecito.
Brown said the evacuations were being lifted in phases to avoid traffic jams from returning residents.
Martha Marsango, an 87-year-old widow, didn't wait for evacuation orders to lift. "The weather is cooperating," said Hall, who was having ash cleaned off his daughter's car at a car wash.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited evacuees housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus before the sheriff's announcement.
Actor Rob Lowe, an area resident, said the fire was scary but he shared the governor's sentiment about how residents have dealt with it.
The community just pulled together."
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