Fire In Paradise

I awoke this morning to news that Montecito is on fire. (The link is in the title.) If Montecito is on fire and the Santa Annas are blowing, it will quickly engulf the canyons and move with lightening speed up the coast into Santa Barbara.

First Love/Last Love (Tom) and I were living in his house at the top of West Camino Cielo in 1990 when the Painted Cave Fire struck. I had been working all day at Robinson's in La Cumbra Mall on upper State Street, a few blocks from San Marcos Pass Road, (highway 154), but had a tennis lesson after work at the tennis courts by Hendreys beach. While on the court, I noticed smoke off in the distance toward the foothills. I immediately cancelled the rest of my lesson and raced for my car. When I got to the base of San Marcos Pass Road, the Highway Patrol had blockaded the highway and would not let me pass. All they would say was there was a fire at Painted Cave on East Camino Cielo (we lived on West Camino Cielo). I told one of the patrolmen I needed to get home to rescue the cat. I didn't mention Tom--I figured he'd rescue himself--but I was worried. The Highway Patrolman told me I could drive up the coast and try the back way in. Which meant taking 101 to Gaviota, then Las Cruces toward the cutback to highway 246 to Santa Ynez, which intersected with highway 154 and was the back way to San Marcos Pass. Another blockade and another Patrolman who refused to let me pass even though I could prove I lived there. He told me the residents living on the roads off the Pass had been evacuated. I turned around and retraced my route back to Santa Barbara. By the time I got back, the fire had come roaring down the canyons and crossed the eight lanes of the coast highway and was burning parts of Hope Ranch which is where Tom's ex-wife and children lived.

The fire moved fast in the Santa Anna Winds, roaring down the canyon, but no one ever thought a fire would cross eight lanes of freeway. I was there just after the fire crossed the freeway heading into town and all of us came to a screeching skidding halt. Cars started backing up and trying to turn. It was chaos. I finally managed to turn and drive back into Golita to find a Motel for the night. I got the last room available. I was there a week. Tom was in Los Olivos. It took us two days to locate each other(this was the world before everyone had a cell phone). He came and stayed with me until we could go back up the canyon to see the damage. Dave the cat was fine.

His ex-wife's house didn't burn, and neither did his house up the mountain. But the trip from home to work and back was a grim, moonscape of ash. There was not a tree, or bush or bit of grass that had survived the fire as it raged down the canyon. It was an arson lit fire. It was the beginning of the end for us as a couple. But that had nothing to do with the fire. Merely the scorched earth that was our relationship.