Thanksgiving Through Fire

In 2019 we were invited to go to my wife’s sister’s home in Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving. Since I am not teaching, our schedule was more flexible. We planned to fly to San Jose, where my daughter lives, on Saturday, drive down to Santa Barbara on Monday, and return to San Jose on Saturday.

My wife’s sister Sylvia and her husband Jonathan live in a home up in the hills of Santa Barbara. They built it a number of years ago and had to meet a number of codes to make it safe as there had been a fire on the property at one time that had killed a woman. That was in 1990. My wife’s brother also lives in Santa Barbara so we were looking forward to family time.

My daughter Andrea drove us down to Santa Barbara on Monday. Besides some slow traffic in places, it was a fairly uneventful trip down. As we approached Santa Barbara all of a sudden we all got a message on our phones saying there was a fire nearby, and there could be emergency vehicles on the road. However, as we proceeded on we didn’t encounter any vehicles, but we did see some smoke arising on the other side of a ridge.

We arrived at Sylvia’s home, and they were aware of the fire, but it seemed a long way away. We relaxed and chatted and eventually ate dinner. Jonathan arrived home from work and seemed more concerned about it all than we were. He went out to put out some fire hoses around the property as they had fire hydrants, part of the code for their property. By this time it was dark, and we could see the glow of the fire over the ridge. It was pretty large. On the news we heard about neighborhoods that were being evacuated, but they weren’t really close to us.

We would go out and see the fire from time to time, and then Jonathan called us to look. The fire had come over the ridge and now rather than a glow, we could see flames. It had become extremely windy, and the wind was blowing embers around that were setting off the fires. The flames were on the other side of the road from Jonathan’s property, but it was getting closer. We began to be concerned. Within a short time we saw how fast the flames were moving, and we decided we needed to leave. It was too close for comfort.

We quickly packed up our things again to drive out of the area. Jonathan said he was going to stay with the property, but Sylvia, her brother, and we left. As we drove down the hill, we were surprised how far down the fire had gone. In fact as we neared the bottom, the fire was right next to the road. When Sylvia drove down about ten minutes after us, she said the fire was on both sides of the road. It was pretty scary. The fire had grown in just a few hours to 3,000 acres. In the end it was over 4,000 acres.

We were headed to Sylvia’s son’s home in Santa Barbara. He and his wife and baby son were living in a small home there. We all arrived on short notice needing a place to stay. They were very gracious and scrambled around finding a place for all of us to sleep. It wasn’t the best situation, but we made it work. After we all arrived, we were mainly glued to the TV to see what was going on. The concerning part was that Sylvia could not reach Jonathan on his cell phone, and she was worried. She later called 911 who went out to check on him. His cell phone had died, but he was safe.

Tuesday we woke up to check out the news. The wind had died down, but it was still a growing fire. We had breakfast out, then wandered around town to try to stay out of the way. In the afternoon Sylvia heard that one of her neighbors had returned home so Silvette and I went with her in hopes of getting into her house. We were turned back. The woman at the on-ramp said, “There’s a fire,” as if we didn’t know that. Disappointed we turned back and spent another night in town.

Overnight Tuesday it rained. That had been expected and did a lot to help settle down the fire. Sylvia thought she would try another way to get home so she and Silvette took off, but they were again turned back. At noon we were watching the news and heard that all the evacuation orders had been lifted. They also showed a picture of Sylvia’s home on the news. Everyone went crazy as we could see some of the area around it.

As we considered that the next day was Thanksgiving, there was still a lot of uncertainty about what to do. There was no electricity at the house and no idea when it would come back. With so much uncertainty, we made the decision to go back to San Jose. We didn’t want to be in the way and add stress to the situation. Fixing a nice dinner for us didn’t seem a priority at this point.

However, we had left some things at the house so we went back with Sylvia to get them. She was stopped, but this time she was let through. We got to the property and could see that the fire had come quite close, but didn’t get to the house itself. Jonathan had quite a story to tell us about his experience.

He said the fire got close about 45 minutes after we left. He was using his hoses to fight the various places that flared up. Eventually some fire fighters came with their trucks and helped him below the house where they have an avocado orchard. He talked about at one point thinking where he could go in the house that would be the safest. It’s a concrete and steel home, so it would not burn. He also had to take cover at times when it would rain down embers that could easily have burned him. Overall he was thankful that the damage was not worse, and he was safe.

After taking pictures and getting our things we headed back to San Jose. We arrived in the early evening. Andrea and I went out to get some food for a Thanksgiving dinner we had not planned to make. The next day we had a nice morning walk and then fixed our dinner. It was a year to remember.

Despite the size of the fire, no one was seriously hurt or died in the fire nor was there any major damage to homes. The rain made a big difference, and the city breathed a sigh of relief when it came.

We often go through the motions of being thankful on this one day each year, but this Thanksgiving the events of the past few days made many people really realize how much they have to be thankful for. We’ve been invited back to try Thanksgiving in Santa Barbara again next year. We’ll see.