More than 30K ordered to flee Santa Barbara fire

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Source: Associated Press

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Turning the horizon a lurid orange and raining embers on roofs as it advanced, a raging wildfire that has destroyed scores of homes in the hills menaced this celebrity enclave and other coastal towns Friday, and the number of people ordered to flee climbed to 30,000. Authorities warned an additional 23,000 to be ready to leave at a moment's notice.

Columns of smoke rose off the Santa Ynez Mountains as the 4-day-old blaze — fanned by "sundowner" winds that sweep down the slopes in the evening — blew up from 2,700 acres to 3,500 in less than a day, creating a firefighting front five miles long.

"It's crazy. The whole mountain looked like an inferno," said Maria Martinez, 50, who with her fiance hurriedly left her home in San Marcos Pass, on the edge of Santa Barbara. The couple went to an evacuation center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

An unknown number of homes were destroyed in the blowup that began Thursday night, in addition to the estimated 75 houses that burned the night before on the ridges and in the canyons above Santa Barbara.

No deaths or serious injuries were reported.

The number of people ordered to evacuate rose to 30,500 from 12,000 the night before as the blaze pushed west toward neighboring Goleta and east toward well-to-do Montecito.

"Literally last night, all hell broke loose," Santa Barbara Fire Chief Andrew DiMizio said Friday morning, recounting firefighters' efforts to put out roof fires and keep flames out of his section of the city.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090508/ap_on_re_us/us_wildfires

[aquart]

1. Even if you return to an intact house, evacuation itself is a trauma.

[Hepburn]

2. OMG....

...how horrible.

I love Santa Barbara. I went to undergrad school at UCSB for three years.

Wow...how sad, very sad. :cry:

[phantom power]

3. That sounds pretty bad out there.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Fingers crossed for them. nt