Speaking of evacuation, you know the Tea Fire you've seen on the news lately, that one in Montecito? It came within a half mile of burning down my grandmother's house. Check out some of the pictures of it. Also, my favorite climb was burned from the base most of the way to the top. And the top was burned over the summer.
To show you just how close it got: See the road in the bottom of this picture I stole from Getty/AFP? I ride it every single day when I'm in Santa Barbara. And it takes me ten minutes to get to this house from my grandma's front door.
I ride under these high tension power lines also. They're in the hills above the city.
And my dad, who just happened to be in town, took this picture from the back deck before they were evacuated for three days.
So it's been a harrowing couple of days, wondering if the house would burn or not. In the end, the flames were contained about half a mile from her house in the foothills. If you're interested or intrepid enough (Bryan, I'm thinking of you here), you can check out how close Kenmore Place is to the fire boundaries. It's in Mission Canyon, an areas adorned by permanent "Extreme Fire Danger" signs and one of the areas in the city designated by the fire department as "a loss:" if the flames get in, it cannot be defended and the whole canyon will be left to burn.
So I'm glad it didn't come to that, because we just bought our tickets to go out there for Christmas.
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