Roger
Update by Santa Barbara City Fire Department
On Saturday, March 30, 2019 at approximately 2:03pm two separate vegetation fires were reported along the southbound lanes of HWY 101 located near the Los Patos Wy. and Hot Springs Rd. exits. Both fires were in thick vegetation underneath Eucalyptus grove canopies.
Santa Barbara City Fire Department dispatched 3 engines and Battalion 714 along with one engine from Montecito Fire Department. Crews quickly made access to stop the forward spread of the fire and extinguish the flames. Amtrak trains and Union Pacific rail lines were temporarily closed due to proximity of the fires to rail lines and for the safety of personnel engaged in firefighting operations. Rail lines remained closed due to fire investigation efforts for approximately 2 hours. Rail lines re-opened at 3:45pm.
Photo courtesy of Santa Barbara City Fire Department
Vegetation Fire near 40 Los Patos in the Center Divider of Highway 101, SBCITY FIRE FULL RESPONSE.
Drug-camps have to go! Which of these many fires will be the one to burn ALL of Santa Barbara to the ground, during any wind event?
My temp gauge is 81 degrees right now. Warming fires? Let’s find another term. Cooking Drugs Fires. The passive nature of our city and county people who are required to keep us safe must look at all these fires and say ENOUGH. Tomorrow we have high temps and sundowner winds. Want to throw in a few cooking drugs fires in the mix?
Montecito residents, I suggest you get on top of this. First fires, then rains and now vagrants threatening you from within. Solve this problem. You have the money, talent, space and political will. If you can’t solve vagrancy with your collected influence, how can the rest of us?
I stated They ought to charge these people who start warming/cooking fires with arson I did not say this was a warming fire…You want to change it to “Cooking drug fires” I’m sure they are not all that but all fires should be outlawed and anyone lighting them should be charged with arson but that’s my opinion I’m not changing anything..Well maybe my MILPAS UNDERPANTS been 6 weeks this time….
City needs to file suit against Union Pacific for maintaining a public nuisance along their RR right away. Crime, drugs, fires, trash, grafitti and predictable human carnage. Either Union Pacific fences and patrols their property; or we shut it down. It is a corridor of crime, going right through the heart of our slender coastal city.
Those firefighters are no doubt being exposed to human feces and needles… Hope they are careful wading around those dirtbag camps.
Maybe it’s time for the community to have a large demonstration out along these tracks where all the homeless camps are allowed to grow. UP would have to shut down the tracks for a while. There are miles of these camps along the tracks, from Montecito to north of Goleta. Or do we just let them burn down our neighborhoods.
Your all talking about this has to go that has to go and your expecting other people to do it. I have seen the same comments for 10 years.
We have had “progressive” Democrat-dominated city councils and boards of supervisors for the past 10 years. Those days are over. It was a fail.
Only outside contact is the annual “homeless” count, where volunteers assess how many more goods and services can be handed out this scofflaw population group of service resistant addicts. A 24/7 volunteer safety patrol of these increasingly dangerous vagrancy corridors is the far better solution. Neighborhood Watch can provide a workable format for volunteer safety patrols. Doing nothing is no longer an option.
Sharon Byrne is the executive director of the Montecito Association. Perfect person to organize a march to protest the lack of resident safety along the RR tracks. (fires, drugs, crime, sanitation, litter, chemical run-offs) Ms Byrne and the Montecito Association can also set up volunteer patrols, working in coordination with the police and sheriff’s departments, just like one finds in plenty of other nearby communities. Check out what they are doing in the San Fernando Valley. Local LE need to up their game and start working with the community to finally eliminate this threat.
Who does this make sense to? How are you going to charge someone, who gets their money from begging, thousands of dollars for setting a fire? There is no chance of getting any funds this way. The FCC fined robocallers $208 million from 2015 to present, but have only collected $6,790. You think the city of SB would have better success collecting from the poor?
It past time to get your priorities straight government LEADERS. You are literally fiddling diddling while santa barbara burns. DO SOMETHING NOW. Beyond frustrated.
Homelessness can be alot of things, but the one thing it isn’t, is an epidemic on the rise that’s going to be mitigated by the greed and selfishness posed by the rich in this community and another thing that every single one of you people in this community are one step away from yourselves, with the policies in California and the mismanagement of funds, water, etc. A brush fire isn’t going to get Montecito off their asses, look what they’ve done to the freeway going thru their prized little part of SB. What a joke!!!
@ BEHM- Perhaps you are new to Santa Barbara, because your comment is truly a “joke”. The City of Santa Barbara has roughly a population of 110,000 residents. PLEASE find me and those that read your letter, ANY City in the United States with a similar population that has done more or thrown more TAXPAYER fund$ to “Homeless INC.” than the City of Santa Barbara… More than 20% , and I would venture to guess closer to 35% of our resident population is on some form of taxpayer subsidy. Whether EBT Food Debit Cards, Subsidized Section 8 Housing, Free medical care (Those here illegally or without income), as well as the FACT that the City signs a check ANNUALLY for over ONE MILLION Dollars + of taxpayer funds, to Homeless INC. -EVERY year-
So please, spare us the “Rich against the Poor”… Those that play by the rules (living without government handouts, busting ass to pay a HUGE mortgage, Property taxes, Health Insurance, Car Insurance and buying our own food) are getting tired of the rhetoric.
@ R0ger- 3 more yrs and then OUT of my Native State of California- The once Golden State.
#metoo.lol
That this area is prone to wildfire is a fact. The businesses, homes & lives these camps threaten are prohibited by law from burning leaves and trash. Homeless, transient, vagrant, substance-addicted is not do-whatever-you-feel-like permission. A patrol to find & knock down these hazards as soon as they spring up is far less expensive than allowing a controllable source of fire-caused deaths/losses on the scale of those already caused by fire, whatever the origin.