New evacuation orders were issued in Santa Barbara County on Saturday as the Thomas fire took aim at the hills above Montecito, with some wind gusts reported up to 65 mph.
The so-called sundowner winds are pushing south from the mountains down to the coast — removing moisture along the way — and are expected to present firefighters in Santa Barbara County with their biggest challenge since the Thomas fire roared back to life a week ago, officials said.
“When the sundowners surface in that area and the fire starts running down slopes, you are not going to stop it,” Mark Brown, an operations section chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, told reporters at a Saturday morning news briefing. “And we are not going to stand in front of it and put firefighters in untenable situations.”
A significant boost in the humidity overnight Friday did virtually nothing to help, fire behavior analyst Tim Chavez told firefighters.