![]() ![]() ![]() Christmas decorations illuminated a house in Carpinteria, Calif., on Sunday, December 10, 2017, as the growing Thomas Fire advanced toward seaside communities in Santa Barbara County. Image credit: County of Santa Barbara, via Google My Maps.įigure 2. If you are in the region of the Thomas Fire, please consult local authorities for the latest evacuation guidance. Voluntary evacuations (orange) extend even further west, while also including more than 10 miles of land along the coast from the eastern end of the city of Santa Barbara to east of Carpinteria. Mandatory evacuations (red) cover a huge swath of higher terrain. Evacuation zones in Santa Barbara County as of 8 am PST Monday, December 11, 2017. The University of California, Santa Barbara, postponed its final exams till early January.įigure 1. On Monday morning, evacuation zones extended to the northern and eastern outskirts of the city of Santa Barbara and included coastal communities from Summerland to Carpinteria (see Figure 1). It’s entirely possible this fire will burn till Christmas and beyond, and not out of the question it will roll past the Cedar Fire of 2003 (273,246 acres) to become California’s largest fire on record. Two of the top 20 most damaging fires occurred in November, but none of the previous top 20 fires in terms of acreage occurred any later than October-much less in December, well beyond the typical tail end of wildfire season. Incredibly, the 57,000 acres burned between Sunday and Monday morning far exceeded the entire coverage of October’s catastrophic Tubbs Fire in the Santa Rosa area (36,807 acres).Īs of Monday morning, Cal Fire reported that the Thomas Fire had officially consumed 230,000 acres and at least 790 structures, making it the fifth largest and tenth most destructive wildfire in state history. The Thomas Fire made an enormous westward surge on Sunday, consuming tens of thousands of acres in Santa Barbara County and reducing the fire’s total containment level from 15% to 10%. More than 6000 firefighters were engaged in a furious effort on Monday to contain the Thomas Fire, the largest of the multiple wildfires that have pummeled Southern California over the past week. The city of Ventura is at far lower right. The Sentinel-2 image is based on observations of visible, shortwave infrared, and near infrared light. Unburned vegetation is green developed areas are gray. Active fires appear orange the burn scar is brown. The fire has since burned much further beyond the left and top of the image. Above: The Multi Spectral Imager of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite captured this false-color image of the burn scar and active burn areas of the Thomas Fire in Southern California on Tuesday, December 5, during its first phase of rapid growth. ![]()
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