Way Back When: Remembering the Fire

Back in June 1917, there was a record-breaking heatwave, and fires broke out in Ojai and Carpinteria. A year later people still remembered those harrowing days. (Read more about those fires in my Way Back When: Santa Barbara in 1917.) 

Rosamond Eddy, a Santa Barbara girl who was visiting Ojai, wrote a story for the local paper about the rush to leave Ojai to escape the flames. “It was a wild ride. I sat in the front seat with two other people partly on the side of the automobile and hanging on to the top for dear life. … We passed people everywhere, walking, riding, driving, with bundles, boxes, suitcases, furniture and babies … We could see everything clearly for the whole scene was bathed in a dull red glow.”

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FYI – I will be one of the speakers at the next Out Loud! event at the Breakfast Culture Club at 711 Chapala on Sunday, June 24, that begins at 7 p.m. I will be speaking about Julia Williams, the Mesa’s lady lighthouse keeper.

My next Way Back When book — 1918 — will be available in local bookstores in November, and at Amazon.com. This will be the fifth book in my series of the history of Santa Barbara, one year at a time.

Learn more about me at my website: betsyjgreen.com