Local Stories by Local People

TEA FIRE, NOVEMBER 13, 2008
by Peter Kornbluth

5:50 P.M.

I was on the couch watching the news when a friend called to say there was a fire above Montecito. I drove over to Gibralter Rd., where there was a good view to the east. The fire was burning along a ridge about a quarter mile above Mountain Drive, 4 miles to our east, and heading south very rapidly. I could see emergency vehicles winding along the roads. Within a few minutes, the fire had jumped Mountain Drive. When a Santa Barbara County Sheriff arrived to close the road, I headed home, calling our nephew Justin and asking him to drive up to our property to help Laura, his 89-year-old grandmother, pack up and leave. She lives in a small house on our property, at the bottom of the hill, next to the avocado grove. Story was at a class in town. I couldn’t reach her.

6:30 P.M.

When I got home, I stopped at Laura’s house. Justin was already there, stuffing the cat into its travel cage and loading up Laura’s Jeep. Story called me and I headed up the hill to our house. On the way, I ran into Raven, the young woman who takes care of Story’s horses. Her boyfriend, Andy, had driven her up there, and she was saddling up to ride and lead the two horses down towards town. I did not envy her, on the road with 2 horses in 60 mile-per-hour winds while emergency vehicles raced uphill with sirens wailing. Andy, whose house on Mountain Drive is very close to the start of the fire, had been in town and could not get home.

7:10 P.M.

Story was already at our house, distributing the white K-Mart laundry baskets bought years before for just this event. Into these baskets went paintings and sculpture, photographs and papers, everything that could never be replaced. We had done this before during fire threats, so it was obvious what to load up. Musical instruments, computer hard drives, boxes of important papers, a suitcase full of clothes for each of us, pets and pet food. The cat could not be found – a problem for Story.

7:40 P.M.

Three of my employees, Mike, Thad, and Carlos, arrived to assist. They carried everything down to the driveway, starting by filling the old Suburban we keep just for this purpose. Then they loaded their trucks with furniture and all of my tools from the shed. At this point, the Mt. Calvary ridge to our east was still blocking any direct view of flames, but the ever-growing red glow in the sky was ominous.

8:10 P.M.

Story left for town while the guys pulled out all of the fire hoses, pumps and foaming equipment from the steel box where it had all been sitting for years. They unrolled hoses and attached them to hydrants around the house. They hooked up the hoses to a device which injects fire retardant into the water, and made a complete circuit of the house, covering all the doors, windows and exposed wood with a sticky, soapy foam. We could now see huge flames on the ridges to the east.

8:45 P.M.

Mike, Thad and Carlos left for town. I drove down to the 2 other houses on our property. Laura lives in a frame house built in 1977. Fifteen years ago, we installed a fire sprinkler system on the outside of the house. It is built from PVC pipe strapped under the eaves and on the roof, fitted with about 20 big Rainbird rotating sprinklers, and controlled with a 2” valve. It had not been tested for a few years. I opened up the valve and the system charged. Almost immediately, I heard a “pop”, and saw that a joint had come unglued up near the roof. Bummer. I had to shut it off. I went down to the other house, a beautiful, hundred-year-old redwood farmhouse where our good friends Walter and Patty live with their daughter Estelle. We had installed a hydrant at the deck years ago and left 100 feet of fire hose coiled up and ready. I hooked up the hose to the hydrant und unrolled the full 100 feet.

9:10 P.M.

I got back

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